The East Toba Montrose Hydroelectric Project, located about 100 km north of Powell River, British Columbia, will consist of two hydroelectric generating facilities with a net capacity of 196 MW, as measured at the delivery point to the BCTC transmission line at the proposed Saltery Bay switching station. The Project is comprised of the East Toba River Project and the Montrose Creek Project and a 230-kilovolt (“kV”) transmission line. Project features include diversion dams, surface penstock structures, powerhouses with Pelton units, access roads and transmission lines

Scope of Services
Hatch provided technical and environmental independent engineering services to support the financing of the 196-MW East Toba Montrose Hydroelectric Project. The independent engineering review occurred following award of contract work to an EPC Contractor, Kiewit Construction.

Specific work activities included:

• Review of the Project’s documentation and principal Project contracts and agreements
• Visited the Project sites to assess the overall suitability of the site to accommodate the Project under consideration.
• Assess the compatibility of the design basis with project operating requirements, site characteristics and off-site transport requirements.
• Review of the Project’s designs with focus primarily on the overall designs, performance capabilities, major equipment and redundancies of the electric generating units, as well as interconnection with off-site facilities such as electric transmission. The review included dams (e.g. design and dam safety review) and hydraulic structures, the powerhouses, and hydroelectric generating equipment and operating constraints in order to evaluate their capability to perform in all anticipated modes.
• Review of the key technical issues of all major Project agreements, including power purchase agreements, transmission interconnection, O&M agreements, and water rights agreements.
• Review power generation studies performed by others and hydrologic records for the Project and provided forecast of future electricity production.
• Review the scope of supply and technical provisions of the Engineering, Procurement and Construction bidding document.
• Review the completion and performance guarantees and associated liquidated damages and bonus payments, buydown or buyout provisions, liquidated damage caps and total liability provided by the construction contractor and major equipment suppliers.
• Review the proposed design and construction schedule and determine whether adequate provisions have been made for design; equipment procurement, fabrication, shipment and installation; and start-up, shakedown and testing of the Project.
• Review the scope of supply and corresponding cost estimate methodology for all project costs, including but not limited to the engineering, procurement and construction contract.
• Review the drawdown schedule generally appended to the contract and comment on whether each monthly cash drawdown amount is consistent with the project schedule.
• Review and comment on the guarantees provided in the bidding document.
• Review the permitting schedule and all available permits or permit applications and identify what major permits have not been obtained.
• Review the Environmental Impact Assessment to determine its adequacy in light of standard industry practices, and commenting on potentially significant concerns affecting the Bank’s interests.
• Prepare an independent engineering review report, including conclusions and recommendations.

Project Highlights
The project review was performed under a fast-track, team approach that was completed on-time and on-budget. Several design recommendations were adopted into the basis of design document. Monthly construction monitoring of the project is being performed by the IE, and IE certificates are issued prior to each loan disbursement.