BC Hydro has awarded the civil construction contract for the Seven Mile unit 4 generation project to Jim Dent Construction of Hope, British Columbia, Canada. Valued at US$3.8M, the contract consists of concrete removal from the face of the unit 4 draft tube; placement of new concrete around the draft tube and scroll case; along with other assorted work.
The civil contract will require the placement of about 7600m3 of concrete and 272,000kg of reinforcing steel. All of the work is expected to be complete by 2002.
The turbine and generator contracts have been awarded to GE Canada, under a partnering agreement that also involves additional employment opportunities in British Columbia. The GE site installation crews will be working in close co-ordination with the civil contract work.
The Seven Mile unit 4 project is expected to cost US$60M and provide about 250 worker years of employment, with local income benefits of US$6.6M during the construction period.
Unit 4 will provide 214MW of additional capacity and about 302GWh of energy, enough for 30,000 homes. Although, the original in service date is 1 March 2004, a plan to accelerate this is currently being considered.