Site C power purchase of interest to Yukon

The Yukon Development Corporation is looking into purchasing Site C hydroelectric power according to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Natural Resource Operations, Ranj Pillai. Speaking at the annual Association of Mineral Exploration Roundup in January he said: “The new government of British Columbia continues to talk about one of the challenges with the Site C project being the fact that they thought it was going to have surplus power. They were really concerned about where they would get an appropriate price for that surplus and what they would do with it.”

If the Yukon could persuade the federal government that the cost of the $1.7 billion line would be a good idea Pillai said: “We’ll be looking for the federal government to understand how important this is not just to the Yukon and BC but to the whole country. I mean, this is the ability to drive a resource economy on clean energy and provide a big impact and improve input into the whole Canadian economy.”

Such a concept would be a joint government and private sector development. In 2017 the Yukon Energy Department released its own plan for meeting the Territory’s future energy needs. Three different plans include improvements to current facilities and an investment in battery storage as well as building a new LNG or diesel facility and a small hydro project.

The minister said the plans are still valuable. “We’ve got a federal government that is really starting to put money into the renewable space to build a green economy. From a financial perspective when you take into consideration the potential third party contribution that doesn’t put a cost on the taxpayer, that changes the discussion a little bit. You have at least taken a look at other options.”

FortisBC is presently transporting LNG via the Alaska Highway to the Yukon. The gas is compressed in Vancouver and shipped from there through British Columbia.