Project partners:
The renewable energy revolution
e n We speak to Jay Sutton, Vice President of Alterra Power Corp, about the firm’s brand new Jimmie Creek Construction Project
Written by Wedaeli Chibelushi Produced by Tom Venturo
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he world is becoming increasingly environmentally conscious. How can energy companies serve communities with minimal damage to their surroundings? Jay Sutton, Vice President, Hydro Power at Alterra Power Corp, presents a solution. A civil engineer by training, Sutton is working with Alterra Power Corp to finalize the new Jimmie Creek Construction Project. “Alterra is a renewable energy company and we have wind, geothermal and hydroelectric plants located in British Columbia, the US and in Iceland,” Sutton explains. The firm is a global leader in its sector, operating seven power plants totaling 819 MW of generation capacity. The Jimmie Creek Construction Project is a renewable power facility constructed on the creek
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the project takes its name from, a waterway in British Columbia’s Toba Valley. The hydroelectric project produces 62 megawatts of power, enough electricity for over 15,000 homes. Sutton, who has worked on British Columbia hydroelectric projects since 2008, tells us more. The project “There are incredible resources up in Toba Valley. From a water perspective it’s a great geographical location for run-of-the river hydroelectric projects,” he says. Unlike traditional hydroelectric projects, which flood large areas of land, run-of-river projects divert a portion of the flow from the river into a pipe called a penstock. The penstock carries the water downhill to a generating station. Gravity produces the energy required to spin the turbines, then the turbines
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“They make sure there’s minimal environmental impact during construction so that there’s minimum impact afterwards”
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Photos sourced from the Jimmie Creek Hydro Project.
CONSISTENTLY EXCEEDING OUR CLIENTS EXPECTATIONS WITH OUR PROFESSIONAL AND CONSCIENTIOUS APPROACH IN COMPLETING EXCEPTIONAL QUALITY CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS, WHILE MAINTAINING BUDGET AND SCHEDULE GOALS. Hazelwood Construction Services Inc. has been in business for over 20 years. During that time we have accumulated a diverse construction portfolio, including run-of-river hydroelectric developments, bridge installations, road construction, municipal infrastructure, as well as a variety of industrial and commercial construction projects.
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Ross Beaty Executive Chairman Ross J. Beaty is a geologist and resource company entrepreneur with over 40 years of experience in the international minerals and renewable energy industries. In early 2008, Mr. Beaty founded Magma Energy Corp. to focus on international geothermal energy development. In 2011, Magma and Plutonic Power merged to create Alterra Power Corp. Mr. Beaty also founded and currently serves as Chairman of Pan American Silver Corp., one of the world’s leading silver producers, and since 1985 he has successfully founded and divested a number of other public mineral resource companies. Mr. Beaty is a Director of The Nature Trust of B.C. and patron of the Beaty Biodiversity Center at the University of B.C.. Mr. Beaty is a past President of the Silver Institute in Washington, D.C., a Fellow of the Geological Association of Canada and the Canadian Institute of Mining, and a recipient of the Institute’s Past President’s Memorial Medal. In 2007, Mr. Beaty received the Association of Mineral Exploration of B.C.’s Colin Spence Award for excellence in global mineral exploration; in 2008, he received the Mining Person of the Year award from the Mining Association of B.C. and the 2008 Natural Resources & Energy Entrepreneur of the Year Award by Ernst & Young. In 2010, Mr. Beaty was awarded the prestigious Viola MacMillan Award by the Prospector and Developers Association of Canada and was selected as Mining Person of the Year for 2011 by Canada’s Northern Miner newspaper. In 2014, Mr. Beaty received the CIM’s Vale Medal for Meritorious Contribution to Mining.
produce electricity. When the water leaves the generating station, it is returned to the river it was diverted from. “There are many areas with steep valleys and high run-off in British Columbia,” Sutton continues. “So we hired a company do a screening of areas up and down the coast of British Columbia and the Toba Valley was one of the areas with the highest potential.” The Jimmie Creek Construction Project will join two existing Alterra plants in the Toba Valley: The East Toba and Montrose projects. Employees “The crews that operate our East Toba and Montrose project started training on the Jimmie Creek project
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“We had the company do a scr amount of areas up and down and Jimmie Creek was the are
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reening of a significant the coast of British Columbia ea with the highest potential�
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John Carson Chief Executive Officer John Carson is a highly experienced renewable energy business leader with a core expertise in structuring and leading financial transactions. His experience over the last ten years includes senior positions held in GE Energy Financial Services (Renewable Energy Group), Terra-Gen Power and Noble Environmental Power, and he has closed billions of dollars of transactions, primarily in the renewable energy space. His education includes a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a Bachelor of Science from Purdue University.
in January. They’ve been training for the last eight months so that when Jimmie Creek started generating in July they were fully prepared to start operations,” Sutton comments. He tells us about the Jimmie Creek Construction Project’s employment structure. During construction 200 people were working on the site, but now that the project has finished, the staff size has been whittled down to two crews of six
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employees. The smaller team will operate all three plants: East Toba, Montrose and Jimmie Creek. Sutton expands: “They’ll operate on a one week in and one week out rotation. There’s no roads to the valley, so when they work on site, they actually live on site at our East Toba plant.” Partners Alterra Power Corp worked with a number of partners to finalize the Jimmie Creek Project. “The financial partner that we own and operate the project with is called Axium Infrastructure, a Montreal based portfolio management company that are our partners on
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Jay Sutton Vice President, Hydro Power Jay Sutton has over 15 years of experience in hydroelectric, transportation and marine infrastructure projects. Mr. Sutton worked for BC Hydro as construction manager and for WorleyParsons for the construction of the William R. Bennett floating bridge in Kelowna. Most recently, Mr. Sutton worked for WorleyParsons as project manager for the Toba Montrose hydroelectric project prior to joining Alterra in May 2010. Mr. Sutton holds a Bachelor of Applied Science, Civil Engineering from the University of British Columbia. He is responsible for the development, construction and operation of hydroelectric projects at Alterra.
the two other hydroelectric plants, East Toba and Montrose, as well as our Dokie windfarm in Northeast British Columbia,” Sutton tells us. Axium has followed the project closely. “They made regular trips to site during the construction and recently visited the site to have a look at the project as it is being completed,” Sutton says.
Alterra Power Corp also partnered with Klahoose First Nation. The Jimmie Creek project lies within the traditional territory of Klahoose First Nation. Sutton elaborates: “We worked closely with the Klahoose during the construction, they performed to a number of significant contracts for the construction of the project and a significant amount of the workforce were Klahoose members.” Regarding clients, “there’s only one customer in British Columbia that purchases the power: BC Hydro,” Sutton says. BC Hydro and Power Authority is the main electricity distributor in British Columbia. It is owned by the Province of British Columbia. The Jimmie Creek
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$
57.8 million Alterra Power Corp annual revenue
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construction project is currently selling its power under a contract with Powerex Corporation. Its 40-year contract with BC Hydro will begin when full commercial operations start in August. Sutton adds: “We’re still finalizing the last remaining items on each of the construction
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contracts and contractors have a warranty that lasts three years on the project.” Sustainability Sutton moves on to talk about a
key focus of the Jimmie Creek Construction Project: sustainability. “These projects are renewable, they take nothing from the environment, they have no exhaust pipes and don’t emit
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any greenhouse gases,” he explains. minimum impact afterwards,” Alterra Power Corp has tried to Sutton neatly summarizes. minimize the area that the plant is constructed on. When the plant The future is constructed, the Alterra team Alterra is not stopping at the Jimmie rehabilitates all the areas that they Creek Project. “We have one more can, so they can replant project located in the valley grasses and trees to try called Tahumming River to restore the area. and it’s another small “They have a very run-of-the-river small footprint project. We hope to and they have no start construction in emissions, they’re 2017.” Number of low impact projects,” 2017 will be a employees at Alterra Sutton says. He big year for Alterra Power Corp added that there are – it is also looking at a number of people who developing wind and monitor the construction site solar projects in the US for and ultimately provide a review on construction around that time. Led by environmental stewardship. These the recently completed Jimmie Creek independent monitors are either Construction Project, Alterra is headed hired by Alterra or by the province. for future sustainable success. “They make sure there’s minimal environmental impact during construction so that there’s
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600-888 Dunsmuir Street Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V6C 3K4 Tel. 778-886-3660 jsutton@alterrapower.ca www.alterrapower.ca