BC Hydro is delivering its overall capital project portfolio under budget. It has completed more than 550 infrastructure projects over the past five years and collectively those projects were delivered more than $71 million under budget.

Projects

There are hundreds of BC Hydro projects underway in various stages throughout the province, including:

• The Mica Units 5 and 6 Project ($714 million) will be completed by the end of 2015. BC Hydro is adding two new generating units at the Mica dam near Revelstoke. The installation of the fifth and sixth turbines in the unused bays at Mica Generating Station will add approximately 1,000 megawatts of capacity to the grid, adding 8 % to BC Hydro’s generating capability. So far, more than 1,500 workers have been hired to help with project work at Mica.

• The replacement of the 68 -year-old John Hart Generating Station ($1.1 billion) at Campbell River will result in safer, more efficient and reliable electricity provision on Vancouver Island. The facility currently provides enough annual power to supply 70,000 homes. This will increase to 80,000 once the project is completed in early 2019. Approximately 350 people are expected to be working at the site by the end of 2016.

• The Ruskin Dam and Powerhouse Upgrade ($748 million) in the District of Mission will enable the facility to withstand a severe earthquake, improve environmental performance and replace equipment that is in poor condition and becoming increasingly unreliable. Ruskin produces electricity for more than 33,000 homes and businesses around the Lower Mainland. The project is creating about 1,000 direct jobs over six years of construction, with completion in 2017.
• The Site C Clean Energy Project ($8.3 billion) near Fort St. John will be a source of affordable, reliable and clean electricity for more than 100 years, providing 1,100 megawatts of capacity and producing about 5,100 gigawatt hours of electricity each year – equal to 10% of BC Hydro’s 2014-15 domestic sales and enough to power the equivalent of about 450,000 homes.
  • Site C will provide approximately 10,000 direct construction jobs through a nine year construction schedule. In November 2015 BC Hydro announced the preferred proponent for the main civil works contract on the project. Peace River Hydro Partners expects to have up to 600 people working on construction of the project by May 2016, and up to 1,500 workers at peak construction in mid-2018. Jobs on the main civil works will include on-site construction jobs related to component manufacturing, transportation and related services.

Recently completed projects include:

• The new, high-voltage Interior to Lower Mainland Transmission Project ($743 million) was completed in November 2015. The 247-kilometre-long, 500-kilovolt power line stretches from Merritt to Coquitlam. It’s an addition to BC Hydro’s system of transmission lines that will help bring electricity from where it is generated, on the Peace and Columbia rivers, to the province’s major load and high demand centres on the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island where more than 1.4 million of BC Hydro’s 1.9 million customers are located. The project created about 850 direct jobs over three-and-a-half years of construction.

• The GM Shrum Turbine Replacement Project ($272 million) was completed in October 2015, about $100 million under budget. It involved refurbishing five generating units at B.C.’s largest power generation facility at the WAC Bennett dam near Hudson’s Hope. GM Shrum alone generates 25% of the total power produced by BC Hydro annually and can generate enough power for more than a million homes each year. The upgrades will allow BC Hydro to generate power for an additional 16,000 homes. The project created about 500 jobs over a three-year construction period.

• The Merritt Area Transmission Project ($65 million) was completed in November 2015. The upgrades will help meet growing electricity demand being driven by economic growth in the Merritt area. It involved building a new substation, making upgrades to an existing substation and putting up a new, 35-kilometre transmission line. More than 100 jobs were created during construction and Merritt-based companies worked on key elements like clearing for the new line, building new access roads and constructing foundations for transmission structures.

• The Northwest Transmission Line ($716 million) went into service in July 2014, running 340 kilometres from the Skeena substation near Terrace to a new substation near Bob Quinn Lake. Work on the Northwest Transmission line created approximately 840 direct jobs during three years of construction.
  • The new transmission line delivers affordable, reliable and clean power to a part of the province that's never before had access to the grid, opening up Northwest B.C. to the potential to attract more than $15 billion in mining investment alone – creating up to 10,000 jobs.
  • The Northwest Transmission Line is powering operations like Imperial Metals’ Red Chris mine – a $650 million project that’s now in production and employs 300 people full-time, including many First Nations, in high-paying, family-supporting jobs. The transmission line will support other new mines currently in development, including the $5.3 billion KSM mine, which will create up to 1,800 jobs during construction and over 1,000 jobs in operation. The line also integrates AltaGas’ Forrest Kerr, Mclymont and Volcano hydroelectric projects, which add 277 megawatts of clean supply to the BC Hydro system.

Jobs and Opportunities for B.C. Businesses

The BC Jobs Plan builds on the strengths of our key sectors and our educated and skilled workforce, keeping our province diverse, strong and growing.

BC Hydro projects are expected to generate a total combined GDP impact of $13 billion and create about 110,000 person-years of employment.

Examples of the types of jobs required to carry out BC Hydro’s capital project work:

• Electricians, carpenters, millwrights, boilermakers, equipment operators, iron workers, crane operators, power line technologists, welders and general labourers.

There are currently about 800 B.C. companies that are directly helping BC Hydro with its work on capital projects.

Examples of Northern and Thompson-Okanagan companies benefitting from BC Hydro capital project work:

• Fort St John’s Arctech Welding and Machining Ltd. is helping with work on existing equipment, sandblasting and painting for the GM Shrum Units 1-5 Turbine Replacement Project.
• Moberly Lake’s JDG Contracting provided piping modifications and welding work on the GM Shrum Units 1-5 Turbine Replacement Project.
• Revelstoke’s SPM Landscape Contractors Ltd. provided restoration and snow removal work on the Mica Units 5 and 6 Project.
• Secwepemc Camp and Catering Ltd. provided catering services for the workers on the Mica 5 and 6 Project.
• Chetwynd’s Paul Paquette & Son’s Contracting from Chetwynd has been awarded a contract for south bank clearing on the Site C Clean Energy Project.
• Prince George’s A.L. Sims & Sons Ltd. has won a contract to improve public roads on the Site C Project.

Examples of Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island companies benefitting from BC Hydro capital project work:

• Mission’s Seven Generations Environmental Services Ltd., owned equally by six Sto:lo First Nation communities, provided environmental monitoring and restoration work on the Interior to Lower Mainland Transmission Project.
• Coquitlam’s Sterling Crane is providing services for the Ruskin Dam and Powerhouse Upgrade Project.
• Burnaby’s Mott Electric is doing most of the electrical work on the Ruskin Project.
• Surrey’s LMS Reinforcing Steel Group is doing most of the rebar work on the dam portion of the Ruskin Project.
• FMI, in Nanaimo, was awarded the electrical and civil construction subcontract to the recently completed Long Beach Area reinforcement Project on Vancouver Island.