Keeyask Generating Station nearly 60% complete

Construction of the 695-megawatt (MW) Keeyask hydroelectric generating station in northern Manitoba is nearly 60% complete, with the first generator now expected to start producing electricity in October 2020 - 10 months earlier than planned. The project is also on track to meet its control budget of $8.7 billion (CDN), having successfully met - or exceeded - all of its construction targets for the 2018 construction season.

Located on the lower Nelson River, Keeyask is being developed by the Keeyask Hydropower Limited partnership, a venture between Manitoba Hydro and four northern Indigenous communities: Tataskweyak Cree Nation, War Lake First Nation, York Factory First Nation, and the Fox Lake Cree Nation, collective known as the Keeyask Cree Nations. These communities will have the opportunity to collectively own up to 25% of the completed project, in addition to gaining training, employment and business opportunities through the construction of the project.

There is now one major construction season left for concrete and earthworks (the excavation and piling of earth to form structures such as dykes and access roads) completion. The 2019 construction season will also see the start of the shift of work to the installation of the mechanical and electrical systems inside the generating station, with all seven units to be in service by fall 2021.

When completed, the Keeyask Generating Station will add approximately 4,400 gigawatt-hours of renewable electricity per year to Manitoba Hydro’s total supply. That is enough electricity to power almost 400,000 homes.