B.C. Hydro cancels transmission line project that riled up residents in Anmore

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      B.C. Hydro has shelved a plan for a new transmission line in the Lower Mainland.

      Called the Metro North Transmission Project, the plan called for building an additional 230 kilovolt line between Coquitlam and Vancouver.

      The project has riled up a number of residents in the Village of Anmore, who have raised health and safety issues.

      The Anmore residents were also worried that the line will affect the values of their properties.

      The project involved about 10 kilometres of overhead lines and 20 kilometres of underground cables from a substation in Coquitlam.

      The line was supposed to pass through Anmore, Port Moody, and Burnaby, and connect to a substation in the Mount Pleasant area of Vancouver.

      The project called for the replacement of existing overhead lines in Anmore and Port Moody, an overhead crossing of Burrard Inlet, and a new underground route through Burnaby and Vancouver.

      The line was supposed to increase electrical transmission capacity, and strengthen the reliability of the B.C. Hydro network.

      Urs Ribary, a professor of cognitive and neural sciences at SFU, was one of the Anmore residents that opposed the project.

      In a letter to Ribary and wife Evelyne, B.C. Hydro properties representative Betty Lui wrote that the transmission project “won’t be needed until about 2035”/

      According to Lui, the project was cancelled because a recent forecast on power demand showed a “lower load increase than expected”.

      “Going forward, we’ll continue to monitor the load forecast and transmission system every year to confirm the timing of any project needed to reinforce the system,” Lui also wrote.

      B.C. Hydro started consultations for the project in 2013.

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