Plutonic and development partner GE Energy Financial Services have received a provisional environmental assessment certificate for the 166MW Upper Toba Valley scheme.
They submitted the application in the third quarter of 2007 with the hope of the permitting process being concluded by about now. The planned installed capacity was initially seen as approximately 120MW.
Upper Toba Valley consists of three plants - Upper Toba River, Jimmie Creek and Dalgleish Creek. They are to generate approximately 350GWh of electricity annually.
The certificate for the scheme was awarded to the partners by two government departments - the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. The scheme has the support of the Klahoose First Nation.
Last year, Plutonic and GE Energy Financial Services announced that Upper Toba Valley was part of their planned expansion on their co-operative venture in run-of-river hydro projects. They have envisaged that approximately Can$4B (US$3.3B) will be needed for the Bute Inlet scheme, comprising 18 plants, and the three plants in Upper Toba Valley. In total, the projects would have approximately 1.2GW of capacity.
The companies' cooperation began with the 196MW East Toba/Montrose Creek scheme in the province. The plants - East Toba (123MW) and Montrose Creek (73MW) - are due to be operational by mid-2010, and have a 35-year supply contract with BC Hydro. The development budget is Can$660M (US$544M), and the companies' First Nation partners are the Klahoose, Sliammon and Schelt.
