The British Columbia government has decided to complete the construction of the controversial 1,100 MW Site C hydropower project on the Peace River in British Columbia (Canada). The Site C project, that will be owned and operated by British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority (BC Hydro), is expected to generate 5.1 TWh/year of electricity.
In October 2017, BC Hydro announced that the project would cost an additional C$610m (US$484.3m), rising the overall project costs to C$8.945bn (US$7.1bn). The commissioning date has been delayed from 2019 to 2024. The facility will entail a generating power plant with six 183 MW generating units. Two new 500 kV AC transmission lines are scheduled to connect the Site C facilities to the existing Peace Canyon Substation (BC).
So far, C$4bn (US$3.1bn) have been spent or committed to the project and it would be a more feasible option to proceed with construction rather than cancel it. If the government had cancelled the project, it would have taken C$3.9bn (US$3bn) in public debt for the province, of which C$2.1bn (US$1.6bn) already spent and C$1.8bn (US$1.4bn) in remediation costs.