BC Hydro has begun filling the Site C reservoir following the completion of all necessary construction areas of the project.

Site C will be the third dam and hydroelectric generating station on the Peace River in northeast B.C. Construction on the Site C project began in July 2015 and is more than 85 per cent complete.

Site C will provide 1,100 megawatts (MW) of capacity and produce about 5,100 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity annually. This is enough energy to power about 450,000 homes per year in B.C.

Filling the reservoir is one of the last steps in building the Site C project and allows the generating station, spillways, turbines and generators to come into operation.

It will take about two to four months to fill the Site C reservoir, with water levels rising between 30 centimetres and three metres a day. The Site C reservoir will be 83-kilometres long, cover about 5,550 hectares of land, and will have a total surface area of approximately 9,330 hectares. In comparison, the reservoir will be about five per cent the size of the Williston Reservoir.

The first generating unit is scheduled to come into service in December 2024, and the project remains on track to have all six generating units in service in fall 2025.

At the dam site, road maintenance is ongoing, including activities on the Peace River Construction Bridge. Work will continue in the right bank drainage tunnel, left bank drainage adit, and dam buttress galleries. Construction of a drainage channel and lock block wall on the left bank is nearing completion.

Installation of cable tray, transformer assembly, electrical cables, and equipment in the powerhouse is underway. Crews are installing the isolated-phase bus and 500-kilovolt line termination equipment to receive the new 500-kilovolt transmission lines.

The Site C project is on track to be completed within the budget that was approved in 2021.

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