A capital budgeting analysis of the proposed Site C Dam

This paper looks at the issues surrounding BC Hydro's the capital budgeting decision for the proposed Site C Dam on the Peace River in northeast British Columbia, Canada. The project is compared with a potential combined cycle natural gas-fired thermal electricity generating facility. Techniques such as net present value, internal rate of return, modified internal rate of return, profitability index, payback period, modified payback period, and equivalent annual annuity are used to evaluate six scenarios. These scenarios have varying values for weighted average costs of capital and carbon tax rates. A sensitivity analysis addressing changes to weighted average cost of capital inflation rate, electricity price, annual electricity output, capital cost, carbon tax rate, and the price of natural gas identifies the largest uncertainties faced by the project and compares them with the natural gas alternative. --Leaf ii.