Yukon Energy Begins Works With Yukoners to Plan Next 20 Years

Yukon Energy is looking to Yukoners to help chart the course of the territory’s short to medium-term electricity future.

The energy corporation is starting the process of updating its resource plan, which will cover the years 2016 to 2035. 

“Planning for Yukoners’ power needs takes careful thought and research, and a balancing of values,” Yukon Energy President Andrew Hall said. “It requires input from all Yukoners since we all have a stake in the territory’s electricity future.”

Over the next 12 to 15 months, Yukon Energy will be involved in a public process that will allow the corporation to:

• Determine what the electricity needs are expected to be in the territory over the next 20 years;
• Determine how much of an electricity shortage there will be over that time period;
• Examine all possible energy options available, analyze each one based on consistent criteria, and determine which ones are the best choices for the territory technically, economically, environmentally, and socially; and
• Write a resource plan that will be submitted to the Yukon Utilities Board for review.

“Yukoners can make their voices heard at every step in the planning process,” Hall said. “It is important that we understand people’s values, so they can be reflected in the resource plan.”

Yukoners can provide input through public meetings, a comprehensive values-based survey and a new interactive website, among other things. Yukon Energy hopes to increase electricity literacy through a series of information pieces placed in a Yukon newspaper and mailed to households.

There will be direct and ongoing engagement with First Nations throughout the resource planning process. “We recognize that First Nations have the right to be engaged as a government, a potential energy investor or proponent, and as Yukon citizens, and we will work with them on all those levels,” Hall said.

Yukon Energy expects to have a resource plan to submit to the Yukon Utilities Board early in 2017.

Contact:
Janet Patterson                                                                       
Manager, Communications
Yukon Energy Corporation
(867) 393-5333                                                                      
janet.patterson@yec.yk.ca