The BC Hydro Site C, an Earth fill dam, located in Charlie Lake, Canada, is nearing completion with only twenty-percent of the project left to finish by 2025. The last few stages of the project include filling up the reservoir and a few other operations to be finished.
Power Generation
The BC Hydro Site C commenced in 2015 by starting to clear up the construction site and laying the foundations, after the completion of the project the hope is to add 1,100 megawatts of capacity and a gaping 5,100 gigawatt hours of energy annually to the city and the British Columbia’s power grid too.
Costs
When starting out the estimated cost for the project was 8.8 billion, however due to the rising costs of construction its rose to 10.7 billion three years later, then to a good $16 billon to date. The purpose of the project after completion was to have it provide clean energy to four-million or more people and to find a solution to change climate change altogether.
Also read:Â The Top 10 Largest Dams in the World
Challenges
Though a good amount of work was put in the scope of the BC Hydro Site C project challenges were bound to come around. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic the project was set-back and this around this year the workers of the project had gone down cause of the winter coming to the region and reducing the work schedules. But despite the now cold climate the project was decided to continue. The original plan was to start filling the reservoir earlier this year, however, because of the employee count dropping it was moved to fall next year, 2024. Another challenge was the escalations in costs for the construction and everything else involved.
Project Area
Once finished the BC Hydro Site C, will be considered one of the third out of four major dams on the Peace River. The whole Site will cover 5,550 hectares of land that’ll be 83 kilometers long in total.
A tunnel conversion was completed this year between July and September essential for controlling the flow of water when the site is to be filled. Before the filling starts four massive rings are to be installed to regulate the oncoming flow of water. A few other things are yet to be done to complete the last twenty-percent marking the end of the project in 2025.
Contractor for the Generating Station and Spillways (GSS) Civil Works
The contractors for the GSS Civil Works are the AFDE Partnership. A team of four construction companies building GSS Civil Works side of the dam. The partnership include the following: Aecon, Flatiron, Dragados, and EBC.
In March,2018, the BC Hydro Company awarded the AFDE Partnership with a contract for the GSS Civil Works. The main job of the Partnership is to construct the dam’s powerhouse, the penstocks, spillways and power intakes, as well other contributory construction work.
