The Ontario government is declaring the Red Lake Transmission Line a “priority project,” which will speed up the process of approving the development of the proposed transmission line.
The project will connect Red Lake and Ear Falls to Dryden, linking the region to the provincial grid.
Electricity demand in the Red Lake region is expected to increase by as much as 525 per cent in the next 25 years, thanks in large part to nearby projects under development, including projects by Frontier Lithium and Kinross Gold.
Red Lake mayor Fred Mota was in Thunder Bay alongside Minister of Energy and Mines Stephen Lecce for the announcement.
“For too long, communities in our region have faced challenges related to limited transmission capacity and vulnerability to many outages, but this project directly addresses those concerns,” said Mota.
The new transmission line will allow communities in the region to move off of diesel generators, which the province touts as a win in the move to transition towards cleaner, more sustainable power sources.
Minister Lecce highlighted the province’s new One Project, One Process framework for approving new project permits, which aims to double the speed at which new developments are brought from proposal to construction.
“Don’t let anyone tell you that you cannot move fast at a time of true economic difficulty for the country and the world by working in meaningful partnership,” said the minister.
