Ottawa: On February 12 federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna announced the referral of the environmental assessment of the proposed Amisk Hydroelectric Project in Alberta to an independent review panel.
AHP Development Corporation is proposing to construct and operate a 330-megawatt run-of-river hydroelectric facility on the Peace River, approximately 15 kilometres upstream of Dunvegan, in northwestern Alberta. As proposed, the Amisk Hydroelectric Project would generate approximately 1,875 gigawatt hours of electricity per year. The proposed project would involve the construction and operation of a powerhouse, spillway, headpond, fish passage, boat passage, a connecting transmission line and substation, as well as access roads and other construction related components.
Amisk is being developed by AHP Development Corporation on behalf of a number of partners including Concord Green Energy. Concord Green Energy has invested in several renewable energy projects across Canada and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Concord Pacific, a Vancouver-based company that is primarily involved in residential real estate development.
The Amisk facility would operate as run-of-river (i.e., less than 48 hour retention time in the Headpond) with potentially a limited extent of active storage. The water level at the dam would be raised approximately 17 metres by the structure and river flows would pass through powerhouses equipped with turbine units to generate electricity, or released through a spillway during times of high water flow.
The headpond created by the structure would extend roughly 50 km upstream. The total inundation from the headpond would be approximately 800 hectares, which at 2 hectares per MW is relatively small as a result of the deeply incised valley along the reach of the river that will be impacted. As a comparison, the World Bank’s 2003 report “Good Dams and Bad Dams” estimated the average inundation from all hydroelectric projects around the world at 60 hectares per MW.
To generate the equivalent amount of electricity as the Amisk project with utility scale solar generation would require over 4,000 hectares of land.
The proposed design incorporates fish ladders to allow migratory fish passage and various options are being evaluated for boat transportation around the dam structure including boat lock, portage system, and boat launches upstream and downstream of the dam. The proposed site is located close to existing roads and electricity transmission.
Following regulatory approvals, final design and construction could commence as early as 2018 and the project could be operational as early as 2023.