Good news from my neck of the woods.
Last week, BC Hydro announced a new generation projectrs from Independant Power Producers.
Political objections about allowing business to control electrical energy resources aside… it *is* good that new generating capacity will be coming online in BC, and the majority of it is from renewable sources.
A list detailing the new electricity generation projects is here.
The vast majority are hydro projects of varying sizes, but none large scale dams… mostly small dams and run-of-river projects.
However, the biggest projects span a variety of technologies, including Wind, Hydro, Biomass and Coal.
In upcoming posts, I’ll detail a few of the more interesting projects but for now some highlights for me are:
The Dokie (180MW) and Bear Mountain Wind (120MW) projects… generating 536GWh/yr and 371GWh/yr respectively.
The Tumbler Ridge Coal/Biomass project is, I believe the largest project of its’ kind in BC (I’ll have to check that)
And, in my town of Port Alberni, the local Hupacasath First Nations is building on their successful China Creek run-of-river project with another run-of-river project nearby on the Franklin River. It will generate a similar amount of power as China Creek (6.65MW, 19GWh/yr). It’s very nice to see this kind of long-term, environmentally sound thinking right here in my City (which itself is a little less progressive).
Noticeably absent from this list from BC Hydro is…..
Natural Gas fired Co-Generation plants.
And that… is a good thing.
But the news isn’t all good, I’ll delve a little more into that in upcoming posts.
Cheers!