City of Powell River officials have organized a meeting with the Powell River Regional District board and Tla’amin (Sliammon) First Nation band council about the proposed Freda Creek run-of-river project.
The meeting is open to the public. It takes place at 10 am on Wednesday, October 31 at Town Centre Hotel.
The city and Tla’amin have entered into an equal partnership agreement to investigate the viability of developing and operating a run-of-river facility at Freda Creek. The project had originally been proposed by Plutonic Power Corporation, which merged with Magma Energy Corporation last year to form Alterra Power.
The city has committed to contributing 50 per cent of the costs for a pre-feasibility study for the project, pending identification of a funding source. The project has the potential to generate 36 megawatts, generating 115 gigawatt hours, enough electricity for about 12,000 homes.
Donald McInnes, former Plutonic vice-chair and CEO and now executive vice-chairman of Alterra, said the company had a clause in its agreement with Tla’amin that it could participate in the project to some extent. He said the company did not proceed with the project for a number of reasons, but not because it was a bad project or because it wasn’t viable. “We’ve been so busy with a lot of things,” he said. “It is a smaller project. The total revenues that it might turn out at the end of the day would probably be reasonably insignificant relative to other things Plutonic was doing. It’s a smaller number because it’s a smaller project. It doesn’t mean it’s not a worthwhile project to do.”
When the company handed over the project, it didn’t have a clear understanding of what the economics might be, McInnes added. “We thought it would be a great project for the community to have,” he said. “The community did some fantastic things, reforming its industrial tax rate, working with Catalyst Paper Corporation and the province, and this would be a good opportunity for the city to have its own source of revenue, as it would be for Sliammon.”
The city “went to bat” for Plutonic when it was in the permitting process for its Toba-Montrose project, McInnes also said, and in many respects it is not receiving any direct fiscal benefits from it. “It’s almost funny, in a peculiar way, not a ha-ha way, that the regional district’s tax revenues have increased dramatically because of the project and they never really embraced what we were trying to do and accomplish,” he said. “So this is a kind of thank you to the city, to Sliammon.”
When Plutonic conceived of the Freda Creek project, the regional district showed no interest in seeing the company develop it, McInnes added. “If it’s owned by the people, for the people, then it would probably get a better hearing in the community,” he said. “It’s a fantastic project. It will produce a lot of winter energy, which is the kind of electricity that British Columbia really needs. It’s low impact, like Toba-Montrose. It’s in the middle of an area that’s actively logged, so you’re not touching any pristine forests.”
As well, building on the Toba-Montrose project, there is capacity in the community to develop the project, McInnes said. “I think it would be a great legacy for the citizens of Powell River and Sliammon to enhance their base revenue to provide the kind of services the residents of Powell River want,” he said.
The company spent about $600,000 in preparing early studies and working on the project before it handed it over, McInnes also said.
