
BC Hydro says a new substation in Kamloops will take pressure off existing electrical grids in the city.
The company celebrated a new $56-million-dollar substation today in Sahali, near Kenna Cartwright Park, which began operating in November.
The project’s senior vice-president Al Leonard says the company’s other power grids in the city, in Brock and near downtown, were nearing capacity.
“What this do is it allows to offload some of the load from some of those two substations and provide us with future capacity. So as new customers connect or as the population grows, I understand it’s estimated to be about 120,000 in the next 20 years, this substation will meet those customers’ needs.”
Leonard says the new station has a capacity of about 100 mega watts which is enough power for about 10,000 customers.
“Currently right now it’s serving about 6,600 customers, it will be able to serve more and as we move load on, both from other substations but also as other customers connect onto the system. There’s quite a bit of capacity for future load growth.”
BC Hydro bought the six-acre piece of land from the city in 2015 and began building the substation in 2017 before it began operating nearly three months ago.