Dave Cobb, who helped organize the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, has been named chief executive and president of British Columbia’s provincially owned electrical utility, BC Hydro said Tuesday. Cobb, 47, was most recently deputy CEO and executive vice-president of the Vancouver Organizing Committee, the body that organized the Winter Games. He will start at BC Hydro on May 25.

BC Hydro, which has been looking for a new CEO since November, said Cobb will be in charge of the utility’s new clean energy agenda, which calls for increased efficiency and greater use of renewable power sources. “The Clean Energy Act sets out a very clear policy direction from the province. I think it’s very exciting but there are challenges with it too,” Cobb told Reuters in an interview.

One key issue will be finding a balance between keeping electricity rates low and procuring new, clean energy, which may push prices up, Cobb said. Canada’s westernmost province, which already generates most of its power from hydroelectric dams, has decreed that 93 percent of its power must come from clean or renewable sources, up from 90 percent.

In addition to hydro, wind farms are also being built in the province.Cobb said BC Hydro needed to get back into the business of building new hydro dams. Last month, British Columbia announced it would push ahead with a long-debated plan to build a 900-megawatt dam, known as Site C, on the Peace River in the northeast of the province.