In a world grappling with a building climate crisis, electrification has become a buzzword. Securing a reliable supply of clean — or at least relatively low-emission — and plentiful power to displace fossil fuels is regularly proffered by policymakers as the way forward. But electrifying large swaths of society — from heavy industry to transportation — isn’t as simple as putting a plug in a socket. New power generation projects, such as wind and solar farms, need to be connected to the grid, which must have the capacity to carry and ferry that power. Transmission lines, substations and all kinds of electrical infrastructure must be built or upgraded to allow that to happen. None of it is cheap, especially when some of your biggest customers — such as mining operations or oil and gas facilities — could be located hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest power line. So what happens when energy-hungry industries want to connect to the grid, but worry the cost of that access will hurt their bottom lines? B.C. may be about to find out. Last week, the B.C. government approved the environmental assessment certificate for the Ksi Lisims liquefied natural gas (LNG) project. It will be built on an island near the mouth of the Nass River in northern B.C., close to the Alaska border. Once operational in 2028, Ksi Lisims could produce up to 12 million tonnes of LNG per year. Premier David Eby claims the Ksi Lisims LNG facility will produce “some of the cleanest low carbon LNG” in the world. Photo: Province of B.C. / Flickr Natural gas — which is extracted in B.C. primarily through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — is mostly methane, a powerful greenhouse gas responsible for around 30 per cent of the current rise in global temperatures, according to the International Energy Agency.Electrifying Ksi Lisims would allow the facility to “produce some of the cleanest, low-carbon LNG anywhere in the world,” according to B.C. Premier David Eby. To go electric, Ksi Lisims estimates needing to draw about 600 megawatts from B.C.’s power grid, according to internal government documents obtained by The Narwhal in February. The project’s remote location means building the required electrification infrastructure won’t be quick, cheap or easy and the project’s environmental certificate notes Ksi Lisims will likely be powered by natural gas when it begins operations. Ksi Lisims is one of eight major industrial projects — including LNG facilities, mines and oil and gas operations — that have expressed interest in connecting to B.C.’s grid. Together, they could require more than 3,000 megawatts of electricity. For context, the Site C dam is capable of producing up to 1,230 megawatts of power. Every one of the projects listed in the internal documents was seeking more than 150 megawatts, and this number is important. It’s the threshold that should trigger a BC Hydro rule created in the early 1990s known as tariff supplement 6. It requires new industrial customers seeking more than 150 megawatts to pay the costs of generating and transmitting the power beyond that threshold. The 150-megawatt threshold is meant to protect other BC Hydro customers, including residential users and small businesses, from being hit with higher electricity prices as a result of investments in new infrastructure to serve large industrial customers. However, requiring LNG, mining and other companies to pay those costs “could be prohibitive,” the documents note. Despite being on the books for more than 30 years, tariff supplement 6 had never been applied because “no projects above 150 megawatts have been built in B.C.,” according to a briefing note prepared for Eby in March 2024. But, with multiple large industrial projects exploring their options for connecting to BC Hydro’s grid, that will not be the case for long. B.C. government opted to pay for part of Cedar LNG’s connection costs At 214 megawatts required, Cedar LNG was one of the first projects to trigger tariff supplement 6’s threshold. The facility, a floating liquefaction and export terminal in Kitimat, could produce three million tonnes of LNG per year for export to Asian markets. The company was spared additional generating costs for clean power because BC Hydro was forecasting a power surplus when Cedar LNG’s connection to the provincial grid was being assessed. As for the transmission infrastructure needed to electrify Cedar LNG, the provincial government opted to contribute $200 million to help build a new 287-kilovolt transmission line, a new substation, new distribution lines and nearshore electrification for the project. Access to BC Hydro’s electrical grid will allow Cedar LNG to produce “the lowest emission LNG in the world,” according to B.C. Energy Minister Adrian Dix. “This is the best LNG in the world,” Dix said during the July announcement. “Our market position, our proximity to the Asian market, makes it the best LNG in the world and it’s the lowest emission LNG in the world.” So how much did Cedar LNG pay for the infrastructure that will allow it to market its product as the cleanest in the world? The Energy Ministry referred The Narwhal’s questions about Cedar LNG’s contribution to the transmission infrastructure to the company, which did not respond by publication time. The Narwhal also asked the Energy Ministry whether other major projects — such as Ksi Lisims — can also expect the province to pay for a portion of any transmission infrastructure required to go electric, but did not receive a response. Premier David Eby visited Kitimat, B.C., in July 2025 to announce $200 million in provincial funding to help the Cedar LNG facility electrify its operations. Photo: Province of B.C. / Flickr The government has been eyeing changes to tariff supplement 6 for more than a year in a bid to find ways “to balance industrial competitiveness with electrification in other sectors of the economy, all while keeping rates affordable,” according to the 2024 briefing note to the premier. Earlier this year, the BC Utilities Commission, an independent regulator that oversees energy utilities, ordered BC Hydro to review the rule, noting its age and lack of nuance in assigning costs. The commission set a Sept. 30 deadline for the review to begin but has since granted BC Hydro an extension until April 30. In pleading its case, BC Hydro told the commission it needed more time to develop alternatives to tariff supplement 6 — something the Energy Ministry was already mulling over in March 2024. BC Hydro also noted that some economic development policies the provincial government is considering “could impact the scope and objectives of any review.” The details of what those policies are and how they could impact the review of tariff supplement 6 are considered confidential and have not been made public. Recent Posts B.C. spent $200 million to connect one LNG plant to the electrical grid Sept. 24, 2025 5 min. read What happens when energy-intensive industries want to go electric at minimal cost? B.C. may be… A massive nickel mine, and the community that wants to love it Sept. 23, 2025 17 min. read Timmins, Ont., has a long history of mining and its economy could use another boom…. The Narwhal scores four Webster nominations for excellence in B.C. journalism Sept. 22, 2025 2 min. read Reporting on carbon pricing, cultural burns and Indigenous-led conservation have been recognized
B.C. spent $200 million to connect one LNG plant to the electrical grid
