Located at the site of the existing Brilliant Dam on the Kootenay River near Castlegar, the Brilliant Expansion project captures energy that would otherwise be wasted when the flow of water exceeds the capacity of the existing dam. As well as generating an additional 120MW the expansion will also increase the health of fish habitat downstream from the dam.
The ecoENERGY for Renewable Power programme will contribute the funding over ten years to ensure that energy from this project can be delivered to Canadian consumers at competitive prices.
Announced by the Government of Canada in January 2007, the program provides $1.48B to increase Canada's supply of clean electricity from renewable sources such as wind, biomass, low-impact hydro, geothermal, solar photovoltaic and ocean energy. It will encourage the production of around 4000MW of new electricity from renewable energy sources.
'Increasing our supply of renewable energy is an important part of our government's Turning the Corner plan to achieve an absolute reduction of 20 percent in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020,' said The Honourable Jim Abbott, Parliamentary Secretary for Canadian Heritage, announcing the funding on behalf of the Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resources. 'Our government is committed to ensuring that clean, renewable power from the sun, the wind, the tides and low-impact hydro projects, like this one, plays an increasingly larger role in Canada's energy mix for the future.'
