The Canadian energy developer is planning to build a series of linked plants at Bute Inlet with a total installed capacity of 914MW. It expects to be able to generate approximately 3,000 GWh per year, and said the production should offset 2M tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
The company’s board has approved a budget of Can$25M (US$24.7M) for further engineering, hydrological and permitting studies in the Toba and Bute Inlet areas. It said the work was in preparations for the expected next call for project submissions to supply power to BC Hydro. Plutonic added that it hopes to submit up to 1.1GW of capacity in the call for power.
Plutonic hopes to complete the permitting process for Bute Inlet in 2010. In total, it is looking to build 18 plants in three interconnected clusters for the scheme. It said eight plants would be on the Homathko river system, seven plants would be at the Southgate river system and the remaining three on the Ord river system.
Transmission lines of 360kV are being planned at key sites in the project to link to the existing grid. Plutonic said the relatively large capacity of the connections would benefit later hydropower projects.
The Bute Inlet scheme is the next phase of the company’s “Green Corridor Project”, which would include a total of 40 plants. This Corridor includes the 196MW East Toba-Montrose Creek scheme, which is under construction.
