October 21, 2026, Vancouver, BC, Canada – Knight Piésold Canada has received an Award of Excellence in the Water Resources category for Site C Temporary Civil Works at the 2026 Canadian Consulting Engineering (CCE) Awards. Benoit Otis, Specialist Engineer, accepted the award at a gala held on October 15, 2026, at Palais Royale in Toronto, Ontario.

The 58th annual CCE Awards, produced by Canadian Consulting Engineer magazine, is the longest-running national awards program for consulting engineering firms, recognizing high-quality engineering, innovation, and imagination. This year, 20 projects received Awards of Excellence across seven categories from 63 entries. The jury described Site C Temporary Civil Works as “Innovative geotechnical methods for a huge project.”

“We are honoured to be recognized for our work on one of the largest infrastructure projects in Canada,” said Sam Mottram, Managing Principal, Knight Piésold Canada. “Temporary works are critical infrastructure, and Site C showed us why. Our project team adapted the design as conditions changed, which allowed the permanent works to be built safely.”

Owned by BC Hydro, the Site C Clean Energy Project (Site C), now officially named the John Horgan Dam and Generating Station, is a 1,230 MW hydroelectric facility on the Peace River in northeastern British Columbia. Commissioned in 2025, it generates approximately 5,100 GWh of electricity a year, enough to power approximately 450,000 homes.

Knight Piésold served as lead designer for Peace River Hydro Partners, the main civil works contractor, and provided detailed design and construction monitoring for the temporary civil works that diverted the Peace River and made it possible to build the dam, generating station, and spillways safely and efficiently. The scope included six diversion cofferdams up to 35 m high, along with seepage control, slope stabilization, site-wide water management, and other works.

Site C was challenging because of its scale, location, and risk profile. The river had to be diverted while deep excavations went ahead, with variable flows, severe weather, and short seasonal construction windows to manage. The team combined geotechnical, hydraulic, and environmental engineering with real-time instrumentation monitoring, and adjusted designs as excavations exposed ground conditions. System selection and detailing balanced hydraulic performance, constructability, and sequencing requirements, and the resulting temporary works performed reliably throughout construction, including extreme events, while keeping work areas stable and dry.

Earlier this year, the project also received an Award of Excellence in the Energy & Industry category at the 2026 ACEC-BC Awards for Engineering Excellence.

“Site C showed us what an integrated design-construction model can deliver,” Mottram added. “The construction-stage engineering approaches we developed at Site C carry over directly to future hydroelectric and other major infrastructure projects around the world.”

Knight Piésold continues to apply that experience to hydropower, mining, and infrastructure projects across the province and around the world, delivering practical engineering solutions that balance technical performance, environmental stewardship, and long-term sustainability.