B.C.’s biggest run-of-river proposal is the latest alternative electricity investment to be slowed or stopped in a shifting political environment for private power development.

The Bute Inlet project is designed to include 17 stream diversions and powerhouses in a steep fjord north of Powell River.

After missing out on a BC Hydro power purchase contract and seeing the B.C. government’s new Clean Energy Act that passed this spring, developer Plutonic Power Corp. wrote to the federal environmental review panel to say it is putting its plan on hold for further study.

Rupert Legge, president of Plutonic subsidiary Bute Hydro Inc., said in an interview the company has done further field work this year, but hasn’t yet decided whether the project will be scaled back.

“While the Clean Energy Act makes some improvements in the governance framework for electricity development in B.C., there is no immediate certainty for procurement of new projects, with a new planning process just beginning,” Legge said.

Another project that failed to secure a BC Hydro power purchase offer this spring is NaiKun Wind, proposing to build offshore wind towers in Hecate Strait near Haida Gwaii that would power the equivalent of 130,000 homes. NaiKun said it would continue working with the federal government and the Haida Nation, which would be a co-owner.

Paul Taylor, a former Insurance Corp. of B.C. president, left the top executive post at NaiKun this week. He said in March that large electricity developments need a “fair, predictable” power purchase system and a power export framework in provincial legislation.

As the B.C. Liberal government was passing its Clean Energy Act this spring, Environment Minister Barry Penner shut the door on another big run-of-river proposal. Penner told the legislature that new conservancy boundaries on B.C.’s central coast would not be changed to accommodate power lines for a project on the Klinaklini River.

Kleana Power Corp. and its partners the Comox, Campbell River and Da’naxda’xw First Nations, filed a lawsuit May 31.

They contend the B.C. government promised repeatedly that conservancy boundaries would be altered to allow power line construction before they were passed into law.

The Wilderness Committee, one of the environmental groups that rallied against Plutonic’s current development on Toba Inlet, celebrated the delay announced for the nearby Bute project.

Wilderness Committee policy director Gwen Barlee emphasized the financial partnership between Plutonic and General Electric, arguing that Bute shouldn’t be built in the salmon and wildlife habitat of the remote coastal region.

Wilderness Committee also warned that the company might be delaying until federal government changes to environmental review are in effect.

The B.C. government should declare Bute Inlet a sanctuary “to ensure that the Bute Inlet region’s wild salmon rivers are fully protected from the crazy schemes of General Electric and their friends,” Wilderness Committee campaign director Joe Foy said.