Hydro project in north on hold until demand picks up

SaskPower is deferring plans to build a $630-million hydroelectric project in Saskatchewan’s northernmost reaches due to a decline in the projected demand for power in the region.

The Tazi Twe project was, at one point, expected to be completed in 2017 but construction has not started.

“We have decided not to proceed with construction until there is a viable business case for this project, which is largely dependent on economic activity in northern Saskatchewan,” SaskPower president and CEO Mike Marsh said Monday in a statement.

The Crown corporation, which is responsible for generating and distributing most of the province’s electricity, said in a news release that power demand in the province’s north was expected to grow by between four and five per cent annually. Those predictions, however, have recently decreased to between one and two per cent annually, largely due to what its director of supply planning and integration described this summer as decreased mining activity in northern Saskatchewan.

SaskPower has spent about $34 million on the water diversion hydroelectric project, which has been in the works for two decades and would have supplied 50 megawatts to the province’s power grid.

Black Lake First Nation and SaskPower in 2013 signed an agreement in principle to work on the project, which was expected to be the first new hydroelectric project in Saskatchewan in more than 30 years and the first to be built entirely on First Nation land.