B.C. eyes two new hydropower dams, including Site E near Alberta border

B.C. Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions and Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs Adrian Dix speaks before touring greenhouses at Windset Farms, in Delta, B.C., on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

The British Columbia government is looking at building two new hydroelectric dams, including a fourth dam for the Peace River where the Site C project generated opposition and cost overruns.

The so-called Site E project would have a capacity of up to 750 megawatts, while a project near Bute Inlet northeast of Powell River would be bigger at 900 megawatts.

Energy Minister Adrian Dix said Monday that the province is “seriously” re-examining the plan for a Site E dam at the confluence of the Peace and Alces rivers.

The announcement comes amid growing demand for electricity that the government said in a news release was projected to grow 20 per cent by 2030 and 50 per cent by 2050.

“We have real demands in B.C.,” Dix said. “We need more energy, and more electricity in B.C.”

The Site E dam was originally proposed in 1958, along with four other Peace River sites, including the recently completed Site C project, which is now known as the John Horgan Dam. That massive dam has a capacity of up to 1,230 megawatts.

The W.A.C. Bennett Dam was completed on the river in 1968, while the Peace Canyon Dam was finished in 1980.

This isn’t an announcement that the Site E or Bute Inlet projects will go ahead, and instead technical work will determine whether they can or should proceed, Dix said.

“We are gathering the information, we need to make the well-informed decisions on how best to meet the province’s energy needs,” he said. “But make no mistake about it. We have the workers to do this work.”

The minister said B.C.’s strength lies in clean electricity.

“(So), we need to explore large hydro projects and take the steps to look at these options in the technical sense that we need,” he said in an interview.

Dix said other renewable projects, including geothermal power and biomass, are also being considered.

BC Hydro has seen two decades of flat load growth, Dix said, but the Crown corporation is expecting to see a dramatic increase in economic activity in B.C. and power will be needed.

“We are just looking at it seriously, and we hope, and I think, that’s consistent with our plan to power B.C.’s economy,” he said.

After winning the 2017 election, Horgan’s NDP government considered cancelling the Site C dam, but it concluded that work on the project it had heavily criticized while in opposition was too far along.

The dam cost $16 billion, almost double the original estimate of $8.8 billion in 2014.

Premier David Eby announced last month that the dam would be named after Horgan, who passed away from cancer in 2024.

Dix said it is not clear yet how much a dam at Site E would cost, but suggested it would be significantly less than Ontario’s plan to upgrade and expand nuclear power in that province.

“So, large hydro … is competitive,” he said. “But what will it cost, and whether it’s worth it? That will come out of the extensive work that we are doing.”

Dix said the province will bring forward legislative changes to the Clean Energy Act in the fall to give government the legal permission to do the necessary technical review of the dams under consideration.

“So, we are not removing the prohibitions,” he said. “We are simply going to make changes to allow us to investigate these projects.”

That legislation specifically prohibits dams projects at Site E as well as the Homathko River, which feeds into Bute Inlet.

Dix said future consultation will be far-reaching, including First Nations.

He said the main proponent of the Bute Inlet project is the Homalco First Nation. “So, in that case, the consultation has been a bit the other way up to now.”

He added other First Nations in northern B.C. have also shown interest.

“They have been fully engaged in the process so far, but we are not at this stage yet,” he said.

Right now, he said, government wants everybody to know that it is doing the necessary technical work.

Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press