BC hydro project starts clean power generation
by CanadianManufacturing.com Staff
VANCOUVER: Plutonic Power Corp. and GE Energy Financial Services has started selling electricity to BC Hydro from power generated by the East Toba River and Montrose Creek generation facilities.
The Toba Montrose General Partnership (TMGP) project has met its operation date commitments and both facilities are now operating at full capacity while their commissioning continues.
Run-of-river power generation uses the natural flow of rivers and micro turbine generators to capture the kinetic energy carried by water.
After almost a three year construction program, this is the first operational clean power project in Canada for Plutonic and GE Energy Financial Services.
“For Plutonic Power, the achievement of commercial operations and sale of electricity from the two Toba Valley facilities marks a significant transformational milestone,” said Donald McInnes, vice chair and CEO of Plutonic Power. “We are extremely grateful to our equity financial partner GE, our First Nations partners (the Klahoose, Sliammon and Sechelt First Nations), our debt syndicate providers, our customer BC Hydro, our contractor Peter Kiewit Sons Co. and all their subcontractors and the communities that have supported the project.”
The two facilities remain under the control of Peter Kiewit Sons Co., which built the project under a fixed price construction contract. All of the power generated from the two facilities will be sold to BC Hydro under a 35-year contract.
This project is one of several that Plutonic and GE have undertaken to help the province meet its goal of electricity self-sufficiency by 2016 by using 93 per cent clean domestic generation sources.
In addition to the Toba Montrose Project, Plutonic Power and GE Energy Financial Services are constructing the Dokie Wind Project near Chetwynd, BC. It is scheduled to start producing 340,000 megawatt-hours per year in the first quarter of 2011.
GE and Plutonic also have a 40-year contract with BC Hydro for another hydroelectric power project—the Upper Toba Valley Project.
