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BC Hydro says low-likelihood outage risk for Elkford
With recent power issues in mind, BC Hydro has reached out to Kootenay Rockies MLA Pete Davis to inform him and the District of Elkford about a low-likelihood outage risk for the community.
In a July 13 letter to MLA Davis, BC Hydro’s Capital Projects Engagement officer Sally MacDonald outlined how BC Hydro has “identified a low-likelihood transmission outage risk to the District of Elkford, and we’ll be in the community talking to people about it this summer.
“In a rare situation where winter demand for electricity in the Elk Valley is very high and we happen to be exporting power to Alberta at the same time, there could be instability on the power lines that connect the East Kootenay to the rest of B.C. If a contingency (such as a lightning strike) occurs on the B.C.-Alberta 500kV system, an automatic system would briefly shut off power to Elkford and three coal mines in order to prevent an outage to the entire East Kootenay,” MacDonald explained.
“This automatic system has been in place since 2013 and we haven’t needed to use it once. We estimate this rare outage could happen once every 36 to 82 years. It could be as quick as a few minutes and is unlikely to be longer than two hours.
“We’re working to minimize this outage risk and a project is in planning to add equipment that would avoid an outage like this and make Elkford’s service more dependable. This equipment is expected to be in place by 2031, removing the outage risk. Standards put in place by the B.C. Utilities Commission require BC Hydro to notify communities when this risk exists, even though the chance of the outage happening is so small,” MacDonald said.
“We know that Elkford had several outages in 2025, causing disruptions to the community. We’re continuing our work to improve reliability in Elkford, and identifying a solution for this outage risk is part of that.”
MacDonald said an open house will be held later this month July to allow BC Hydro to listen to concerns and answer questions from Elkford residents.
“This will be part of a 30-day comment period and we’ll work hard to resolve any concerns we hear during this engagement,” she said.
BC Hydro will also reach out directly to the District of Elkford, School District No. 5, Interior Health and Elk Valley Resources to gather input.
MLA Davis noted on social media, “I’ll continue working with BC Hydro and advocating for reliable power for Elkford.”
More information is available at bchydro.com/elkford.
e-KNOW file photo
e-KNOW
