According to Burns Lake Band's lawyer Larry Fast, changes in the partnership between local First Nations groups and Pristine Power have lead to bigger and better things for the Ditni Yoh Green Energy power project.
As reported in the Lakes District News edition of Jan. 26, 2011 the Lakes District Native Development Corporation, consisting of the Burns Lake Band, Nee Tahi Buhn Band, Lake Babine Nation, Skin Tyee Band and the Cheslatta Carrier Nation have moved forward in the process of potentially developing a 20 megawatt bioenergy project, to be named Ditni Yoh Green Energy.
The plant is proposed to be located just outside of Burns Lake, close to the Pinnacle Pellet development site and Hampton's Babine Forest Products.
Calgary based company Pristine Power Inc. was originally a partner in the project however in October and November of 2010 the company was bought out by Fort Chicago Energy Partners.
The Calgary based company bought Pristine Power Inc. for $118.4 million, however Fast said they were not interested in keeping any of Pristine's biomass projects.
"They sold the interests to Dalkia Canada," he said.
Dalkia's wholly owned subsidiary is Western Bioenergy Inc. who are now partnering with the Lakes District Native Economic Cooperation for the Ditni Yoh Green Energy project.
The Western Bioenergy group has two projects on the BC Hydro phase two call for bioenergy preferred proponents list, which includes the Ditni Yoh Green Energy project in Burns Lake and Fort Green Energy in Fort St. James.
Dalkia Canada who had a reported $10 billion turnover in 2009, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Veolia Environment worth a reported $47 billion and Electricité de France worth $89 billion.
For the past 80 years, Dalkia has specialized in utilities and infrastructure management focussing on energy efficiency and environmental management.
"We are quite pleased about this," said Fast who went on to say that the new partners will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the Ditni Yoh project.
"The phase two call is still going ahead and is underway now," he added.
Fast referred to the BC Hydro phase two call for bioenergy in which the Ditni Yoh project was one of eight others recently chosen to move ahead in the selection process.
"Dalkia are working on building up a presence in Western Canada ... there will be other spin offs to come from this in the future, but this is a very positive thing for the Ditni Yoh project," he added.
Roger Prosser, from Dalkia's Western Canadian division in Vancouver said to Lakes District News that the company is looking forward to working with local First Nations groups to bring a renewable energy project to the area.
"We are making use of a very valuable resource, the mountain pine beetle left tremendous damage to the forests and we will be using a lot of the wood that can not be used for any other purpose, rather than it just going to waste," he said.
He went on to say that the project will provide a number of benefits to the local area including employment opportunities for First Nations and local people.
"Dalkia is a worldwide company with over 53,000 employees in 42 countries. We are a very strong international company. We are a $10 billion per annum company," he added.
Prosser said that Dalkia Canada has been in operations in Canada for five years and three years on the West Coast.
Prosser added that he has visited Burns Lake on two occasions, most recently in December 2011, when he sat down to dinner with local First Nations representatives including Cheslatta Carrier Nation Chief, Corrina Leween, Burns Lake Band Chief, Albert Gerow and Chief Robert Skin, from the Skin Tyee Band.
The expected timeline for the award of electricity purchase agreements and completion of the request for proposal process is April 2011.