BC Hydro expanding substation for 50,000 more customers in Broadway Plan area | Daily Hive

BC Hydro begins substation expansion project for 50,000 more customers in Vancouver's Broadway Plan area

Mount Pleasant Substation in Vancouver. (BC Hydro)

Construction has commenced on the expansion of the existing Mount Pleasant Substation to support the expected immense densification of the Central Broadway area over the coming decades.

Earlier this year, BC Hydro began work on expanding the 2014-built substation located at the southwest corner of the intersection of West 6th Avenue and Alberta Street.

It will crucially serve the long-term needs of the major residential and commercial densification that will occur within the City of Vancouver’s Broadway Plan area.

You might also like:

When complete, the expanded substation will provide the additional electrical capacity needed to serve up to 50,000 additional customers.

The $90-million project involves installing a new third transformer in an empty space that was reserved to enable the facility’s eventual future expansion. In addition to capacity, other upgrades also entail improving the substation’s reliability.

“Projects like the Mount Pleasant Substation upgrade are the result of years of planning. When we constructed the substation in 2014, we designed our infrastructure with room to grow,” said Charlotte Mitha, president and CEO of BC Hydro.

“Now we’re using that space to install additional equipment and increase capacity, ensuring the electricity system can support the homes, businesses and clean energy technologies that will shape Vancouver in the decades ahead.”

According to the City of Vancouver’s 2026 second quarter report on the Broadway Plan’s progress, there are currently 169 active projects in the development pipeline, including 59 projects that have reached the development permit stage or beyond and an additional 59 projects that have an approved rezoning.

About 25,000 homes are in the development pipeline, including about 17,900 secured purpose-built market rental homes, 3,800 secured purpose-built below-market rental homes, 2,500 strata market ownership condominium homes, and 800 social housing units.

Currently, 20 residential or mixed-use residential projects are in the letter of enquiry stage, 24 are in the rezoning application stage, 49 have seen the rezoning application approved, 35 are in the development permit stage, seven are in the building permit stage, and two have seen the occupancy permit issued.

When it comes to non-residential uses in the development pipeline, there are 32 non-residential projects and 89 mixed-use residential projects with a non-residential component. Such projects would generate about 11.4 million sq. ft. of non-residential space, including 4.1 million sq. ft. of institutional space, 2.5 million sq. ft. of office space, 2.3 million sq. ft. of hotel space, 1.2 million sq. ft. of industrial space, and 940,000 sq. ft. of commercial retail/restaurant/service space.

This includes 16 projects with a hotel component, creating a combined total of about 3,600 hotel rooms, and 36 projects with a local-serving community use in residential areas, such as a cafe and/or restaurant. When it comes to the number of homes by tenure and stage, over 3,600 are in the letter of enquiry stage, 5,500 are in the rezoning application stage, 9,600 are in the rezoning application approval stage, 5,700 are in the development permit stage, 400 are in the building permit issued stage, and 200 are in the occupancy permit issued stage.

A total of 10 building permits have been issued as of the end of this year’s second quarter.

The current challenging economic and market conditions are expected to be a key factor in determining when many of these projects will enter construction — or whether they will proceed at all.

Much of this new density and growth is also driven by the six new subway stations of SkyTrain’s Millennium Line Broadway extension reaching Arbutus. The new subway will open in late 2027.

You might also like: