News & Events

Check this section for Yukon Energy's latest news and coming events.

If you have questions about any of the information posted here, please contact:

Lisa Wiklund
Manager, Community Relations
Yukon Energy Corporation
Phone: (867) 393-5398
Email: Lisa.Wiklund@yec.yk.ca

Nov 14, 2017  2

Yukon Energy and Victoria Gold Sign Power Purchase Agreement

Yukon Energy and Victoria Gold have signed an agreement for the supply of grid power to Victoria Gold’s Eagle Gold Mine near Mayo. The agreement was signed on November 10th and submitted to the Yukon Utilities Board (YUB) for review the same day (last Friday). The signing of this Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) is a key step towards the connection of the mine to our grid. However Victoria Gold must complete a final round of financing to move on to the next phase of construction next spring. If the Utilities Board approves the PPA, power sales to Eagle Mine would contribute $100 million or more in additional revenues to Yukon Energy over the expected ten-year mine life. This new revenue will benefit all electrical consumers in the territory, and will result in a one- to two-percent reduction in rates for other electricity customers. The agreement commits Victoria Gold to covering the full costs of connecting to Yukon Energy’s main line. As well, the mine will pay most of the costs of a new substation, it will cover YEC’s expenses to negotiate the PPA, and it will pay the costs to make system improvements that will benefit all on-grid Yukon communities. The value of Victoria Gold’s investment in the substation, system improvements, and Yukon Energy’s costs totals more than $11 million. The mine will connect initially to the existing Stewart to Keno City transmission line, which can meet the majority of Victoria Gold’s power needs for the first one-to-two years of its operation. However, the existing line is at end of life and must be replaced as soon as possible. Yukon Energy is continuing to work with the Yukon Development Corporation and the Yukon government to secure funding for a new transmission line. The First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun (NND) has indicated its support for both the Eagle Gold Mine and an upgrade to the Stewart to Keno City transmission line. Yukon Energy is working with NND to reach a project agreement for the prospective line. The Eagle Gold Mine expects to go into production in by mid-2019. Its load requirements would be highest during the summer months, when we have surplus renewable energy. The mine’s operations would slow down in December, January, and February when its requirements for electricity would drop to about half of its summer needs. If Victoria Gold is connected to the grid, Yukon Energy will meet their load with a mix of hydro and thermal resources (most of the thermal will be LNG). The amount of thermal will reduce once more new renewable generation can be added to the system. This emphasizes the need to proceed with renewable projects identified in our 2016 Resource Plan. However a grid connection saves up to 53,000 tonnes per year of greenhouse gas emissions when compared to the mine self-generating using diesel.   A copy of the full application submitted to the YUB can be found at the bottom of this page.  

News, Energy Supply, Regulatory, Reliability
Dec 04, 2018  Comment

Responding to Concerns About the Aishihik Relicensing

You may have heard news stories about concerns by the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations (CAFN) about the process to relicense the Aishihik hydro facility. We feel we owe it to Yukoners to explain the situation from our point of view. Aishihik hydro is a key power plant in Yukon’s renewable energy system. Twenty-five percent of the hydro produced by Yukon Energy comes from the Aishihik plant. In winter, as much as fifty percent of our renewable energy comes from Aishihik. The Aishihik facility reduces our reliance on diesel and LNG, which decreases GHG emissions and fuel costs. About 2½ years ago, CAFN and Yukon Energy entered into a protocol agreement to cooperatively plan for the relicensing of the Aishihik power plant. The license expires at the end of next year. Working together, we established: a steering committee (one member each from CAFN and Yukon Energy) to oversee the work and provide high level guidance; an advisory committee of CAFN, Yukon Energy, various government departments and non-governmental organizations; it made recommendations on interests, values, and technical matters; and a Champagne and Aishihik Community Advisory Committee that met frequently to provide information to the project and engage with CAFN Citizens. We also provided funding to CAFN for a traditional knowledge project that included archival and oral history research, as well as map biographies and oral history interviews. CAFN and Yukon Energy jointly selected a consulting team to conduct a comprehensive series of field studies, research, and analysis over several years regarding the environment and people in the Aishihik area. This information was considered alongside other monitoring and research information that has been collected in the project area over the last 40 years.  CAFN Citizens participated directly in most of the field studies and research. Yukon Energy has contributed more than $600,000 to CAFN over the last 2.5 years on this project. We have worked with CAFN in good faith in an attempt to agree on a proposal that balances energy needs with preserving the long-term health and well-being of the land, water, and people. We listened to their concerns, and this has shaped what we plan to include in a project proposal to YESAB. For instance, we have agreed on monitoring and adaptive management to reduce winter flooding and erosion downstream from the Aishihik plant. Another change that both parties agreed to is to remove aesthetic flows at Otter Falls, something that is not expected to have any adverse effects on fish. We have been working together on monitoring of fish and wildlife at Aishihik Lake. What we have not been able to agree on is the operating range of the lake. Yukon Energy and CAFN held a workshop in early September where we had agreed we would discuss a variety of options for the operating range of Aishihik Lake. However at that workshop it became very clear to us that, for CAFN, the only viable option was to return the lake to levels seen before the dam was built. We feel we cannot do that for a number of reasons. First of all, the science shows that the lake and the fish in the lake are healthy. There are no key drivers that we can point to in the scientific research that convince us we should significantly change the lake operation. Also, if we did not have Aishihik and its water storage, we estimate that a new replacement generating plant would cost more than $100 million. In addition, if we returned the lake to levels before the dam was built, Yukon Energy would need to burn more than $10 million per year in LNG and diesel in the short term, in order to make up for the lost energy. This would emit an additional 33 kilotons of GHGs annually relative to our current emissions. Note that, currently, our entire operation only creates 5 kilotons of GHGs each year. We must take the interests of all our ratepayers and Yukoners into consideration in making this decision. Since our water use license expires at the end of next year, and since we can’t operate our Aishihik plant without a new license, time is of the essence. We are already cutting it very close in terms of being able to get through both the YESAA and the Yukon Water Board processes. For all these reasons, we have decided we must move forward on our own with a YESAA proposal late this year or early next. We want to continue working with CAFN, but we simply can’t agree to returning the lake to natural levels.

News, Energy Conservation, Energy Supply, Environment, Reliability
Sep 10, 2018  1

The Next Phase of Our LED Streetlight Project

We are replacing all our existing streetlights with energy efficient Light Emitting Diode (LED) lights. Two years ago we changed the streetlights in Mayo and most of Dawson City. Over the next several weeks we will install LED streetlights in the rest of our service areas, including Faro, Champagne, Braeburn, Mendenhall and rural Dawson. In selecting the lights, we have worked to ensure public safgety while mitigating light pollution. We have received very positive feedback so far about the quality of the light from the new LEDs. Why make the switch? LEDs provide lower power bills for the rural communities we serve LEDs are a better choice for the environment LEDs work well in the cold LEDs use about half the electricity that traditional streetlights do, and they last longer (25 years as opposed to four years) What will be the savings? The people paying the streetlight bill (municipalities, First Nation governments, Yukon government) will see their power bills go down by about $35 a year per light. For example, Faro has approximately 170 lights so that would be a savings for the town of almost $6,000 per year. Yukon Energy will also benefit by seeing energy savings during cold, dark winter nights when our system peaks are highest and we are running thermal generation. Residential customers can see savings by switching to LED lights in their homes. Our electricity conservation and efficiency program inCharge offers $7 rebates on each package of ENERGY STAR® LED lights. 

News
Aug 09, 2018  Comment

the power of yukon

By now a number of you may have noticed that we have a new logo and tagline. Yukon Energy has had very much the same look, including the logo, since the Corporation was established in 1987. We are not the same company we were in the late 1980s, and we felt it was important to reflect who we are today. The logo and tagline flow out of earlier work we did to update our Mission, Values, and Vision. Our new logo helps communicate what matters most to us: sustainable energy for a prosperous Yukon. The dynamic shape represents how we generate most of the renewable electricity in the territory; It resembles the cursive letter "e" for energy; The multiple lines symbolize flowing water; water as a symbol of natural power; rivers that connect our communities; The interlocking lines symbolize working together, connecting people, transforming clean resource into electricity; The flow begins in blue, is transformed into green, and returns to blue, symbolizing a return to a natural state, commitment to sustainable energy, continuity. The literal meaning of our signature "the power of yukon" is that Yukon Energy is the major source of electricity generation for the territory, and that we derive our product by tapping into Yukon resources, both natural and human. However the tagline also suggests that Yukon Energy embodies what is possible in this territory, working with Yukoners. Throughout this project we have worked very hard to keep costs to a minimum. The Yukon government's French Language Services Directorate helped with the cost of our bilingual and French material, and some of the collaterals (signage, stationary, etc.) needed to be replaced anyway, regardless of whether we had re-branded. As a result, the incremental costs in 2018 for the rebranding project were kept to approximately $30,000.  Ultimately, the work we have done is a re-commitment to all Yukoners ... to enable the territory's prosperity with sustainable, cost-effective and reliable electricity.