On Monday, December 15, Kimberley City Council sat for a public council meeting for the first time since their election.
Mayor Don McCormick requested an update on the SunMine project to bring new Council up to speed on the solar project.
City CAO Scott Sommerville informed Council that the project was now projected to connect to the power grid sometime in March, rather than January as expected.
Sommerville said the delay was due to the interconnection with BC Hydro, which took a closer look and dropped the scope of the project from 2 MW to 1MW and suggested a few other options (with some added expense) to prevent the grid from being tripped.
“We expect the SunMine will be connected to the grid some time in March,” he said.
He said Teck would be helping the City to ensure that timeline was met because they wanted the SunMine connected before spring when they require power for their mine dewatering and pumping.
“The project is $79,000 over-budget,” Sommerville said. “We new going in that built in contingencies were light. We are a couple of months behind and $79,000 over-budget.”
However, it was pointed out that operational costs would be lower than projected for 2015 which would make up some of the difference.
“It is a very complex project,” said Coun. Darryl Oakley. “It was clearly known by everyone that the contingency wasn’t enough.”