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October 30, 2017 4:48 pm

Province Says Yes to 3 Run of River Projects

Monday, August 20, 2012 @ 4:03 PM

Victoria, B.C. – The Province of B.C. has granted environmental certificates for three run of river power projects in the Harrison Lake area of the Fraser Valley Regional District. 

The projects, Tretheway Creek, Shovel Creek and Big Silver Creek Waterpower Projects, are proposed by Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. which already operates 9 run of river projects in B.C. as well as nine others in Quebec, Ontario and Idaho. 

The proposed projects, estimated to be worth about $194-million, will produce up to 72 megawatts of power, enough to power 27,500 homes per year. 

The projects will include 3.25 kilometres of new and upgraded roads and a 47-kilometre, 138-kilovolt transmission line from the existing Tipella Creek Waterpower Project to the Shovel Creek Waterpower project.

The provincial EA certificates contain project design features, mitigation measures and numerous legally binding conditions that Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. must adhere to throughout various stages of the project including:

  • Development and maintenance of  a Mountain Goat Winter Range Management Policy, which specifically addresses construction work restrictions during the sensitive period for mountain goats (Nov. 1 to April 30) to ensure that goats will not be negatively affected by construction activities.
  • The Proponent must develop and implement a Spotted Owl Habitat Mitigation Plan, which specifically addresses impacts to the Tretheway Creek Spotted Owl Wildlife Habitat Area.
  • The Proponent must develop and implement a Navigation Mitigation Plan for each the projects to address impacts to recreational boat use such as kayaking.

When operational, the projects will provide four to five full-time jobs and a peak of 250 personnel during the four year construction period. 

The operational dates for the projects are December 2015 for Tretheway Creek and November 2016 for Shovel Creek and Big Silver Creek.

The company must still obtain the necessary provincial and federal licences, leases and other approvals before construction can begin.

Comments

When oh when will they stop building these. We can’t afford the cost of the electricity from these units and the province has to stop subsidizing the shareholders who own them.

Four to five jobs upon completion? 24/7. 365 days a year? What are they doing running these things remotely? Four to five people wouldn’t be able to have one employee on the job year round 24/7 at one site, never mind multiple sites??????

I’d be more ok with these types of projects if we had laws against investors that have ties to off shore accounts.

IMO our democracy (and elections) are completely corrupted and run through off shore banking kick backs. A project like this would fit the profile perfectly.

What are we going to have tp pay for the electricity from these projects? It should be the same as what we pay BC Hydro for electricity.

Gotta keep approving these before the Libs get booted. Who are the shareholders?

Innergex is a publically traded company. Its “INE” on the TSE. Anyone worried about this dastardly corporation making a profit please feel free to go buy some shares yourself and then ride off into the sunset with your cash.

Liberals just paying off the monkey on their backs. The ones that shoveled money at them so they could spread their propaganda and lies so the sheeple would reelect them. Anybody out there really surprised???

Interceptor you do realize your power rates are going up because of the huge contracts to these outfits.

Go look up Site C and do the math on what a 7.9 Billion capital cost with 400 million a year interest costs, not including operating costs, for 1035 megawatts and you can guess what will happen to our power rates. Some estimations are up to four times higher. :)

If smart meters cost 1 billion, then 7.9 billion for a huge dam doesn’t sound like all that much.

Considering that we produce more power than we need in BC, and we export to the USA, all these new projects including Site C are BS.

We will just export more power, and the Government will piss the money into the wind. So whats new???

This Province does not have one politician that is worth a pinch of salt. The NDP will not be any better than the present bunch of losers.

The people of this Province need to wake up and smell the roses. You are being conned by Government every day of the week 365 days of the year. When will we learn??

So interceptor you are happy with 60 billion in contracts to IPP’s

“In June this year the UNEP report announced that Global Renewable Energy investment reached $257 Billion in 2011. It’s so large it rivals the $302 billion invested in fossil fuel power. But how much electricity do we get for all that money? When the details are pulled from the fog, a quarter of a trillion dollars appears to produce only about 3% of all our global electricity, and even less of our global energy. All that money, so few gigawatts.”

Follow the money, and talking about big dams they are what gave us about the lowest cost power power in north america let alone the world. Take away the subsdies and big contracts to the IPP’s then see what happens.

Now you know why the new smart meters are costing us a lot more for our elecricity. They have to make up for the huge amounts B.C. Hydro is paying these guys.

Because of Private Power Producers, and the Liberals contracts with them, we saw extensive spillage from WAC Bennett Dam this spring. That was taxpayers money going through the spillways, so that Run of River projects could sell their electricity at a premium (how much of a premium the Liberals refuse to tell us).
Compared to these PPP, Site C is a bargain at 14 cents a kilowatt hour. But Natural Gas generating stations would cost half of that,producing electricity at between 5 and 8 cents kw/hr. Hope to God the NDP are better business managers than the Liberals.

Lol herbster! The only reason they were spilling water was because there was too much of it. What are they supposed to do let it spill over the top? But it’s okay Herbster that tax payers money will evapourate and fall back into the lake behind the dam when it rains.

They aren’t herbster, as a matter of fact the NDP are anti-business and are really good at miss managing. Just wait for the election campaign for the reminders of how messed up the NDP really were back in the day. Maybe they have changed but I doubt it.

Vote these SOBs out of office!

They should propose to build a nuclear power plant around Chilliwack…the Americans would be so incensed they would pay for Site C just to stop it! Why not, they are using the lions share of the power anyway.

Hydro was spilling water because they had to buy Run Of River electricity from Private Power Producers under contracts guaranteed by the Liberals. The stupidest move ever conceived, like bringing coal to Newcastle, was buying private hydro power in BC. If we must have new alternative energy sources(at outrageous prices) in BC, let them be wind or tidal.

A wet spring has Hydro’s reservoirs overflowing with water. But instead of exporting power at a profit, many of Hydro’s biggest and most cost-efficient dams have been idle while independent power producers with long-term contracts sell onto the Hydro grid at prices many times higher than the selling price of electricity on the trading market B.C. shares with Washington, Oregon and Northern California.

Horgan said he has learned that Hydro’s biggest generating system, on the Peace River, will be idled for several weeks. Meanwhile, electricity trade data from trading grid operators suggests that Hydro has been selling at a loss into the western grid to dispose of the power that private operators keep feeding into it.

“They are selling into a negative market. It’s absolutely bizarre. In this instance it’s just nature converging to highlight the errors in B.C. Liberal energy policy,” Horgan said.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/2035/Hydro+rates+miss+mark+multi+billion+dollar+system+renewal/6895361/story.html#ixzz24CZxPun4

WOW….according to the laws of ‘supply and demand’ electricity rates should be dropping with such a massive surplus of power?? OH right, it only works the other way..any little shortage and the prices go up. re: gasoline

Have’nt seen much in the news about the run of river projects approved for the Holmes River and tributaries, east of P.G. They sneaked those in quietly under the guise that each of the projects is designed to produce less than 50 m.w. thus does not require an environmental review.
This even though all three are built by the same company at the same time and together will produce over 80 m.w.
They are trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
metalman.

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