By Bill Andrews and Tom Hackney

January 14, 2025

The first two generating units at Site C are now in operation, and remaining four units are on track to be in service by November 2025, says BC Hydro. (19 December 2024 Progress Report to the BC Utilities Commission, and 16 December 2024 Media Release). When complete, Site C will provide 1,100 megawatts of capacity, and produce about 5,100 gigawatt hours of energy per year. Site C is the third dam and hydroelectric generating station on the Peace River in northeastern BC. It is time for a recap.

The concept of a dam and generation plant at Site C on the Peace River goes back more than 50 years. By statute (the Water Protection Act and the Clean Energy Act), no other major waterways in BC are available for electricity generation. BC Hydro began engineering studies on a dam and generation plant at Site C in 1971. In 1980, BC Hydro applied for an Energy Project Certificate to initiate Site C dam construction. After lengthy public hearings, the BCUC denied the application in 1983. The BCUC found that the Site C project itself was acceptable. However, the Commission called for further definition of the future demand for electricity and identification of alternative ways of meeting this demand.

Some 27 years later, BC Hydro submitted Site C project plans for regulatory and environmental review to the BC government in 2010 and to the federal government in 2011. BC Hydro’s 2013 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) concluded that BC Hydro needed to acquire new power in the future, and that a resource portfolio that included Site C would be the best. However, neither the 2013 IRP nor Hydro’s recommendation to build Site C received any independent public review.

Following public environmental assessment hearings, a Joint BC and federal Review Panel issued a favourable report in May 2014. In October 2014, environmental assessment of the Site C project was approved by BC and by the federal government. In November 2014, BCSEA published a position paper calling on the BC government to postpone a final decision on the proposed Site C project. BCSEA called on the BC government to require BC Hydro to submit an updated Integrated Resource Plan to the BCUC for a thorough public review. However, in December 2014, the BC government gave a positive final investment decision for what was then an $8.8-billion project. Construction of the Site C project began in the summer of 2015. In January 2016, BC Hydro began filing quarterly reports on the Site C project with the BCUC.

Following cost overruns, public and First Nations criticism and calls for BCUC review from groups such as BCSEA, the BC government in August 2017 directed the BCUC to review and report on continuing, terminating or suspending the construction of the Site C project. BCSEA participated in the BCUC’s inquiry and filed written evidence and submissions (here and here). In November 2017, the BCUC submitted its final report to the BC government. The BCUC said a suspension option would have the highest costs to ratepayers, but the BCUC did not recommend whether to continue or to terminate the Site C project. In December 2017, the BC government announced that the Site C project would proceed, with an increased budget of $10.7-billion.

In 2020, BC Hydro acknowledged financial and geotechnical challenges with the half-completed Site C project. The BC Minister of Energy then commissioned a review by Peter Milburn, who in January 2021 recommended improvements in BC Hydro’s project costs and risk management structure. [[submissions on costs and benefits of killing Site C, including by BCSEA]] In February of that year, the BC government announced that it would proceed with the Site C project, albeit with a $16-billion cost estimate, a 2025 completion date (a one-year extension), and enhanced cost and risk management measures. The BC government observed that “canceling” the Site C project would cost at least $10-billion.

BC Hydro’s most recent long-term resource plan, updated in June 2023 and approved by the BCUC in March 2024, considers energy and capacity from the Site C project to be a “committed resource.” Even with generation from Site C coming on line as expected, the Commission accepted that electrification (to reduce GHG emissions) will require BC Hydro to acquire by fiscal 2029 an additional 3,000 GWh/year of clean or renewable energy from new generation facilities (that is, from independent power producers linked with Indigenous groups) plus 700 GWh/year of additional clean or renewable energy from existing generation facilities in the province. In December 2024, the BC government announced that BC Hydro had selected nine on-shore wind generation projects from bids in response to a call for clean power. BC Hydro will award 30-year electricity purchase agreements to these proponents, eight of which will have 51% equity ownership by First Nations. If all the projects are built they would provide some 5,000 GWh/ year of electricity, but some project attrition is expected. 

Looking back at the BCUC’s 1983 conclusion that a need for power from Site C had not (then) been established, today the Site C energy project is close to completion and additional clean electricity generation is being acquired by BC Hydro.