Qikiqtaaluk Corp.-owned company to canvass opinions on hydroelectric plan for Iqaluit
Nunavut Nukkiksautiit Corp. hosting public engagement Tuesday at Aqsarniit hotel
Nunavut Nukkiksautiit Corp. is hosting a public engagement session Tuesday evening at the Aqsarniit Hotel and Conference Centre to gather input on the company’s plans to build a hydro project outside Iqaluit. (File photo)
Updated on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at 4 p.m.
Nunavut Nukkiksautiit Corp. is planning a public engagement session in Iqaluit Tuesday night to get input on the company’s plans for a hydroelectric project in the community.
The event, called Let’s Talk Water Power, is billed as helping the company “set goals and decide the right size for the water power plant,” its website said.
If successful, the power plant would serve for at least 100 years and could become Iqaluit’s main electricity source, replacing diesel-generated electricity with renewable power, according to Nukkiksautiit’s most recent project plan.
Nunavut Nukkiksautiit Corp. is an Inuit-owned subsidiary of Qikiqtaaluk Corp. It was created in 2017 “in response to the desire of Qikiqtani communities to explore renewable energy,” its website said.
Nunavut Nukkiksautiit Corp.’s plan for a hydro project near Iqaluit includes a dam and powerhouse and could replace diesel used to generate electricity. (Photo courtesy of Nunavut Nukkiksautiit Corp.)
The proposed hydro project would include a dam and powerhouse and would be built along the Kuugaluk River, about 60 kilometres northeast of Iqaluit.
Nukkiksautiit started working on the project in 2022. It’s currently in the engineering and design stage, which includes field studies and public engagements, the project roadmap said.
Qulliq Energy Corp. initiated the project, but in 2014 it was put on hold due to lack of funding.
In 2017, Johnny Mike, then-minister responsible for QEC, informed the legislative assembly that the project would cost “well over $300 million, even approaching $500 million.”
Nukkiksautiit plans to “engage” with QEC on the project but hasn’t yet determined how it would connect to QEC’s electricity grid.
The project would be operational in 2033 at the earliest. It still has to move through territorial regulations and secure funding.
The public engagement is scheduled to run from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Aqsarniit hotel.
Correction: This article was altered from its originally published form to correctly identify Qikiqtaaluk Corp. as the owner of Nunavut Nukkiksautiit Corp.
So, how much will this cost? We know what the GN amount it and a lot of us know it’s much more expensive for the GN to do this and everything else, how much will this project cost Nunavut Nukkiksautiit Corp.?
Can we build houses along the access road?
Can we get electricity to those houses from the power line going to Iqaluit?
Who will keep that access road plowed and open all winter, just in case the powerline needs repair?
Presumably there will be housing at the powerhouse for the powerhouse operators and their families. So there will need to be a school there for their children and a store where their family can buy groceries. Maybe a helicopter platform for emergency access when the powerplant goes down.
Sounds like Apex Two.
Count me in.
Micro-nuclear
Can someone local share how many months a year this river is actually flowing? Because you can’t push ice through a turbine… would this provide power all year, or only in certain warmer months?
Only the surface freezes. Sometimes only slightly
The reservoir would provide enough water to be able to keep the turbine flowing all year. The river would be under the ice and continuously flowing.
To my knowledge the river doesn’t freeze entirely or the aquatic life would die as well
Normally water of any kind that supports it’s on aquatic eco won’t freeze through just enough that the life underneath doesn’t die
Good question. I believe Nuuk has hydroelectric power, granted it’s a little warmer there. I suspect it’s more than 1/2 the year, but happy to be set straight. Even if it’s just 6 months, that would be a big reduction in diesel consumption. But it’s a big capital outlay, and you’re still going to need the diesel backup.
This hydropower project would pay long-term dividends in terms of saved diesel fuel and saved carbon emissions.
Also, by being specifically hydropower with a suitable reservoir to provide reliable power, it will be both renewable and stable. So, it will not require the added cost and complexity and management worries of a battery energy-storage system (BESS).
Granted, the cost of hydropower-plant construction (including the lengthy access road and ancillaries) would be significant, probably 1 to 2 billion dollars at today’s prices. And yes, it would probably entail establishing another sub-community (a bit like Apex, but more independent).
However, when we look at the total cost of ownership (TCO), the price of such a hydropower facility actually begins to look very reasonable. (For example, diesel reciprocating-internal-combustion-engine gensets need regular overhauls and regular replacements. A typical diesel genset is only good for about 100,000 to 150,000 hours before the whole thing needs to be replaced. In contrast, hydropower dams and turbines have much longer lifespans. Look at Niagara Falls and Grand Coulee for examples.)
Of course, the existing diesel-powered plant will be needed as backup, but the amount of fuel it will need as a backup plant will become a tiny fraction of what it currently consumes as the sole power source for Iqaluit (roughly 8,000 people, so about 20% of Nunavut’s total population). This means that the existing diesel plant will effectively last indefinitely as a backup power plant.
So, although this hydropower plant will come with a big price tag, it will tackle a substantial portion of Nunavut’s carbon footprint, all in one swoop. Actually, the amount of carbon-footprint reduction will probably be even more than 20% when you consider that Iqaluit is also home to substantial institutional and industrial and military and commercial and logistics and transportation facilities, all in addition to residential uses.
It is also useful to note that by providing Iqaluit with a second source of power, we would have redundancy. After all, today Iqaluit is probably the only capital city of any sizeable jurisdiction with only one power source. Having two separate power plants provides much-needed redundancy, particularly given the harsh, remote, unforgiving Arctic setting. Having redundancy will protect us against multi-day midwinter outages and nightmares such as the recent one at Kimmirut and also the 2015 fire-induced one in Pangnirtung.
As for the occasionally mentioned idea of small nuclear reactors, that would require a separate, detailed cost-benefit analysis. This would require a whole team of experts in the respective subfields. As a reference point, nuclear-powered icebreakers and submarines do exist in various naval fleets (USA, France, Russia), and they can run for roughly 30 years without refuelling. But there are many daunting technical complexities (and therefore risks and commensurately very high costs) involved in having such technology that has nowhere near the transparency and ease of maintainability that diesel and hydropower have. Indeed, a major advantage common to both diesel and hydropower is that the maintenance is amenable to being done by local staff retained in-house by Nunavut’s publicly owned electrical utility.
Furthermore, in comparing a hypothetical small nuclear plant with a hydropower plant, the hydropower plant has the additional advantage of being cheap to maintain in the long run. In contrast, nuclear power can be very expensive to maintain given the highly specialized servicing and procedures that all nuclear facilities need. Additionally, nuclear power is risky from the business perspective of vendor lock-in and highly proprietary technologies that are inherently finicky for this reason. In contrast, diesel and hydropower (and also wind and solar, for that matter) have many manufacturers and interchangeable components. (For example, in a diesel genset, you can replace just the engine and keep the alternator. Also, there are many makers of alternators, engines, and so on, and due to standardization, these components can be seen as modules and thus are largely interchangeable. This confers valuable freedom from vendor lock-in at the plant-scale level.)
Diesel and hydropower both have the strong advantage of being well-proven technologies with excellent track records. There are no “black boxes” here, and nothing is mysterious here. Everyone can understand how a diesel engine works and how a hydropower plant works. Local staff can be easily hired and trained. All of these human aspects are particularly valuable here in the Arctic.
To reach that spot would mean an access road and high voltage line that would certainly pass near places with considerable wind.
THANK YOU CHAT GBT
I use enough ChatGPT to tell that the comment by Mark above is definitely not AI generated. It’s just legitimately someone who is knowledgeable on the subject.
“Granted, the cost of hydropower-plant construction (including the lengthy access road and ancillaries) would be significant, probably 1 to 2 billion dollars at today’s prices.”
Holey, Moley! That’s a huge amount of money!
How many reactors could you deploy for that kind of money?
I believe rivers’ surface only freezes, and keeps flowing below surface. The shallower lakes used to fully freeze right to the bottom, but that was when it was colder. Last week snowmobiler when thru the Sylvia Grinnel.