A 200-megawatt hydropower generation facility that would use Quesnel Lake as a reservoir, was discussed at the latest CRD board meeting.
The Hen Ingram Lake Hydro Project is a proposed pump storage hydropower generation facility.
Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations, Jane Nichol, Crown Lands Section Head, clarifies how that work.
“It involves using an upper elevation lake and a lower lake; these are reservoir lakes. The water is pumped from the lower lake to the upper lake…power is generated when that flow of water goes back down to the lower reservoir lake.”
The project would use Quesnel Lake as the lower reservoir and Hen Ingram Lake as the upper reservoir.
Nichol says the project is in the first stages of an investigative phase.
“This does not authorize the project for development. They have to do a subsequent application to do the development of the actual project…Basically, this authorizes people to go out there and do studies.”
Nichol says the Hen Ingram Lake Hydro Project needs to complete an environmental assessment and receive fifteen to twenty different authorizations from several ministries before it can begin construction.