The OCMP will help meet customers’ peak energy demands in the Okanagan starting in the winter of 2026/2027 by developing a small scale LNG storage and send-out facility in Kelowna. The facility will be utilised on the coldest days of the year to ensure sufficient energy can be provided to customers who rely on gas to heat their homes and businesses.
Located next to an existing natural gas station on industrial zoned land owned by FortisBC off Spall Road, north of Harvey Avenue (Highway 97), the proposed small scale facility will contain six horizontal storage tanks with a total capacity of approximately 1140 m3 of LNG upon completion – approximately 1.5% of the volume capacity of both tanks combined at our Tilbury facility in Delta, B.C.
All LNG stored at the Kelowna facility will be produced at FortisBC’s Tilbury LNG facility in Delta, B.C. and loaded into tankers at the loading facility. No LNG production will take place at the Kelowna facility and the tanks are expected to be empty for much of the year.
In the first winter of operation in 2026/27, one mobile tank and three portable LNG tankers will be filled and staged on site in anticipation of extreme cold weather events. If the project is approved, FortisBC plans to begin construction in 2026.
“The Okanagan Capacity Mitigation Project will help ensure we can provide energy to existing and new customers in the region over the short-term while we continue forecasting and planning towards a longer-term solution in the years ahead,” said Doug Slater, Vice President, Indigenous Relations and Regulatory Affairs.
