Publication

The Role of Indigenous People in Major Project Development – Part II Indigenous Ownership of Electricity Infrastructure: A Case Study

Aug 4, 2020

This discussion paper is a follow-up to the First Nations Major Project Coalition’s 2019 paper titled The Role of Indigenous People in Major Project Development: Paths for Indigenous Participation in Electricity Infrastructure. That paper detailed the rapid rise of Indigenous equity ownership arrangements around the world in energy generation, transmission and distribution sectors. Yet despite this global phenomenon, progress in British Columbia has been slow and challenging.

This Part 2 follow-up paper aims to help enable the increased adoption of Indigenous equity ownership arrangements by providing a detailed, specific and scalable partnership model, focused on transmission development. In particular, it applies lessons learned from 60 Indigenous and local equity ownership models in the first report to the Kitimat Transmission Line, a hypothetical 16 BC First Nations-initiated 530 km 500kv direct current electricity transmission line from Prince George to Kitimat to service a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) liquefaction plant. This paper addresses the technical, financial, environmental, legal, political and social aspects of the hypothetical project.