By 250 News
Friday, September 02, 2011 03:50 AM

Terrace, B.C.- BC Hydro has chosen the companies that will design and build the Northwest Transmission Line.

The successful companies are Valard Construction, a Quanta Services company , and Burns & McDonnell.

The team will be responsible for the design, materials procurement and overall construction of the transmission line. The selection follows a competitive process that included a request for qualification that was posted on BC Bid, followed by a rigorous evaluation of proposals submitted by three contractors to design and build the Northwest Transmission Line.

Once complete, the NTL project will provide clean, reliable power to the Northwest region of B.C., which is currently not part of the BC Hydro grid.

The Northwest Transmission Line will start at the Skeena substation near Terrace, (show in photo at right) and cover 344 kilometres to Bob Quinn Lake. It will be a 287-kilovolt transmission line and is expected to be up and running by December of 2013.

The construction of the line is expected to create up to 840 direct jobs over the three years of construction.

http://www.opinion250.com/blog/view/21303/1/northwest+transmission+line+one+step+closer+to+reality