The massive Site C dam has begun generating power for B.C.'s electrical grid

After decades of starts and stops, the Site C hydroelectric dam in northeast B.C. has started generating electricity to be fed into the provincial power grid.

On Oct. 28, B.C. Hydro announced that the first of six generating units in the massive project, located just outside the city of Fort St. John about 800 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, has come into operation and started feeding the province's electrical grid.

The remaining units will be turned on "one by one," according to spokesperson Bob Gammer, and all should be operational by the fall of 2025.

Once complete, B.C. Hydro estimates the dam will be able to provide 5,100 gigawatt hours of electricity each year, adding eight per cent to the province's total production capacity.

The $16 billion mega project has been on the books for decades, having first been proposed in the 1950s, but it went through a series of stops and starts as an actual project until it was revived in 2010 by then-premier Gordon Campbell and fully approved by his successor, Christy Clark, who started construction in 2015.

Multiple groups opposed the project, including several First Nations who launched lawsuits arguing the flooding of their cultural areas and hunting grounds was a violation of treaty rights. 

But the project carried on with the approval of B.C. NDP Premier John Horgan who in 2017 decided the project was too far along to stop and earlier this year the massive 83-kilometre long reservoir began being filled.

B.C. Hydro says the reservoir is currently 90 per cent full and is expected to be completely full later this fall.