SunMine

SunMine was the first large-scale solar farm built west of Ontario. It is located on a former Teck mine brownfield in Kimberley, British Columbia, at an elevation of approximately 1,200 metres near the Rocky Mountains. The electricity generated by SunMine is sold to BC Hydro under an independent power producer (IPP) contract.

SunMine demonstrates how underused industrial land can be successfully transformed into clean-energy infrastructure—often described as a transition from brownfield to brightfield. By reusing existing infrastructure such as access roads and grid interconnections, the project converted a former industrial liability into a productive renewable energy asset.

The project’s engineering excellence was formally recognized with a prestigious national award from Engineers Canada, acknowledging SunMine’s innovative design, technical performance, and contribution to sustainable infrastructure development.

SunMine’s strong operational performance—equivalent to roughly 2,000 full-load hours per year—results from a combination of high elevation, excellent solar irradiance, low ambient temperatures that improve photovoltaic efficiency, and dual-axis tracking systems that continuously orient the arrays toward the sun.

KEY FACTS

• Location: Former Sullivan Mine site, Kimberley, British Columbia, Canada  
• Capacity: 1.05 MW (about 250 homes’ worth of power)  
• Technology: 4,032 PV modules on 96 dual-axis trackers, 32 distributed inverters  
• Commercial operation: Began July 2015  
• Current owner: Teck Resources, purchased from City of Kimberley in 2020  

NINE FIRST

SunMine has been an extremely innovative project advancing nine “first”

1. The first large solar PV power plant in western Canada. 
2. The first redevelopment of a former industrial site into a solar plant (brownfield-to-brightfield) in Canada.  
3. The first solar plant originally owned and operated by a municipality in Canada (the City of Kimberley). 
4. The first Canadian solar project actively supported by a mining company (Teck Resources). 
5. The first BC Hydro execution of an Energy Purchase agreement (EPA) with a solar farm. 
6. The highest solar project in Canada (at an altitude of 1,300m). 
7. The first large scale application in Canada of solar trackers (automatically positioning the PV modules for an optimum exposure to the light).  
8. The first application in Canada of distributed inverters (vs. the traditional central inverter) to improve performance and reduce maintenance costs. 
9. The first application in Western Canada of 1,000 Vdc string – compared to the former Standard 600 Vdc – to reduce cost in electrical equipment and copper.