By Cheryl Jahn

Lheidli T’enneh outlines wind mill project

Dec 13, 2024 | 4:15 PM

LHEIDLI T’ENNEH – “BC Hydro will award 30-year electricity purchase agreements to nine successful wind projects in British Columbia. These projects will generate nearly 5,000 gigawatt hours of electricity per year, or enough to power 500,000 homes. Put another way we are boosting our power supply by eight per cent.”

Adrian Dix, now the Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions, says the nine projects represent between five and six billion dollars in private capital spending, creating between two thousand jobs annually during construction.

“And that’s not all. BC Hydro, in this innovative call for power, targeted the minimum 25 per cent First Nations equity ownership in these projects. I’m proud to say that eight of the nine projects will have 51 per cent equity ownership held by First Nations.”

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One of those projects is a joint venture between the Lheidli T’enneh and a Spanish company called Ecoener, which has 16 wind projects around the world.

“They came to our economic development office and Allan Stroet and said, ‘Look, this is a project we want to do.’ And they went through it step-by-step with Allan. And Allan says, “Look, let’s bring this to the Council.’ It was an introduction, and then it snowballed. It was quick, quick, quick, quick,” explains Chief Dolleen Logan of the Lheidli T’enneh.

Eighteen windmills will be located just east of Hixon and will generate 140 megawatts of power. And the Lheidli T’enneh has a financial interest in the project.

“Forty-nine per cent of the way into the project,” says Chief Logan. “So this sets a future source of revenue for our for our nation.”

So the Lheildi T’enneh is graduating from sawmills to windmills. And this latest business venture isn’t the only one the Lheidli Tenneh has up its sleeve. It is working with BC Hydro on another project: Electrification of Highway 16.

“B.C. Hydro wanted to come forward and give First Nations along the line the opportunity to buy into it. So we’re in negotiations right now for Phase One. So Phase One is Lheidli T’enneh, Stellat’en, Nadleh Whut’en and Saik’uz. So this could be another A huge, huge revenue source for the Nations. Dix noted during his presentation getting these projects onto the grid is a matter of urgency, which means these projects will be exempt from environmental assessment.