Closing the Demand Gap Addressed in B.C. Hydro Plan
Wednesday, June 6, 2012 @ 4:00 AM
B.C. Hydro staff talk with members of the public about the Integrated Resource Plan
Prince George, B.C.- Conservation is one of the cornerstones of the B.C. Hydro draft Integrated Resource Plan.
The move to increase conservation is one of the four pillars of the plan aimed at helping to address the gap between the demand for electricity and the available supply in the next 20 years.
Last night, about two dozen people attended the B.C. Hydro open house in Prince George, the first of five such events scheduled for communities in the Province, to get more information on the draft plan.
B.C. Hydro is predicting the demand for electricity could increase by about 50% over the next 20 years largely because of the increased activity in the resource sector and the development of Liquid Natural Gas plants.
Randy Reiman is the Director of Resource Planning for B.C. Hydro says LNG plants have an option to use natural gas to create the necessary electricity for their operations, “But the Government has released its natural gas and LNG strategy and what they’re trying to achieve is three LNG plants up and running by 2020 and they’d like them to be supplied with by clean energy in B.C. backed up by gas. The intent is to make sure the LNG plants are competitive , that the government can still meet its climate targets, its ghg targets and they want to make sure ratepayers are not impacted by the LNG plants.”
But how will B.C. Hydro convince the average homeowner to reduce their energy consumption? Reiman says rate increases for time specific use ( higher rates during peak times) are not up for discussion, that the Government has made it very clear that is not an option. Instead, he says conservation could be encouraged in a variety of ways, including the Power Smart program, changes to codes and standards , education and incentives. Reiman says the Smart Meters have the capability “to achieve some additional DSM (demand side management) savings. We usually start with the premise that if you don’t measure it, you don’t u nderstand what you’re using, you won’t be efficient to what you use. So as a starting point, the Smart Meters give you the ability to actually see when you’re using electricity and why you’re using it.”
The other three pillars of the plan call for increased construction, (including the building of Site C) buying more power from independent power producers and preparing for potentially greater demand than what has been anticipated.
Members of the public have until July 6th to submit their thoughts on the plan, which can be accessed by clicking here. You can make a submission by email : integrated.resource.planning@bchydro.com or by calling the toll free line at 1-888-747-4832
Comments
Why not allow people to independently produce electricity at their homes and sell back to the grid? Germany gets near half their electricity from solar at peak solar times and they are the same latitude as BC.
They do Eagleone, it’s called Netmetering. If you install a solar system on your house you would get a special smartmeter that would give you credit when you solar system is producing power. If at the of the year you had more credit than debit Hydro would pay you .06 /kWh.
“Smart” way of doing business.
The Homeowner has to cut back on Hydro that Industry can use more, who actually owns BC Hydro, I think it’s us the People, if you really want to save KWH mandate all Apartment Buildings to change from Electric Heat to NG but that would cost the Owner to much. Run a Gasline down my Road and I may change to NG Heat, for now I just cut more Firewood on my Rural Property and I think Hydro is not telling the Truth, Time of Day Metering is just around the Corner, the real Reason for the so called Smart Meter!
Will this P3 type system work the same way as the Liberal government forcing 60 billion in contracts onto Hydro and the public for very expensive Independent Power Producer power. Site C hydro electrical dam still has to be built at a cost of 10 billion to back up the IPP power. Also only Site C had to be built, the IPP’s at 60 billion where not required.
The poliitcal mention of GHG’s and man caused climate change, of which is there is no proof and shown to be a fraud. Selling all the oil, gas and coal they can while hitting us with a carbon tax, good scam.
Go ahead and build your solar sytem for thousands and maintain it. Whats the payback? Those systems in Germany where heavily subsidized and where does your power come from when the sun don’t shine?
Netmetering seamut so nothing much to maintain. We aren’t talking living off the grid so when the sun goes down you get your power from hydro. When the sun is up you get it from your panels. Any extra that you don’t use gets credited to your account. No batteries required so very little if any maintenance .
Solar panela degrade, then there is the wiring and controler. It is not as simple as it seems.
This whole Hydro program seems to be nothing more than a large number of people, working for a public utility, that have lots of time on their hands, great salaries and benefits, and not a bloody clue as to what they are doing.
To say their long term plan is confusing would be an understatement. Hydro has two subsiduaries ie; PowerEx, and BCTC. All three are top heavy with high paid Managers, I beleive that the top five people at PowerEx get paid in excess of $500,000.00 per year. Not a bad stipend for buying and selling power.
With all the mines, pulpmills, sawmills, schools, business’s, etc; that shut down in BC in the past 20 years, you would be hard pressed to prove that there is a shortage of power in BC. More likely there has been an increase in exports, which causes a shortage in BC.
Hydro wants to keep various programs on the go, as that is the way they ensure job security. Heaven forbid that any Government organization should publically admit that they have done all that is needed to be done, and it is now time to downsize, and move on. Not ever going to happen.
The power that was used to run the Watson Island Pulp Mill, the Eurocan Pulp Mill in Kitimat, the Sawmills in Terrace, the huge mines Noranda, and Granisle, at Topley, would provide sufficient power to run the lng plants at Kitimat. Where did that power go???
Where did the power from Canfor’s Netherlands Overseas Mill, Rustads Mill, North Central Plywood, Clear Lake Sawmills, Upper Fraser Sawmill, Winton Global, go? In addition Northwood Pulp, Intercon, and PG Pulp and Paper, are generating some of their own power, where did the power go that they used to use??
Stating that their is a power shortage is (in my opinion) pure BS. I say prove it.
Palopu you do know that Hydro is run by the government of the day. BCTC no longer exists, it was born of Hydro now absorbed back into Hydro. It was a very costly experiment.
Power usage in the province is going up, there is nothing to hide there. What is going up is our rates because of contracts to the IPP’s thanks to the fiberals. Christy was going to investigate but nothing heard since, swept under the carpet me thinks.
The actual percentage of solar power in the German grid is around 2-3%. And: this was bought for around 100 billion euros of subsidies which created a bloated, non-competitive ‘solar industry’ which is going belly up company by company as we speak.
the German government’s absurd “energy turnaround” was fueled by a completely overblown representation of the Fukushima accident in the German media, and nodded off by an “ethics commission” which had two bishops on board, but not a single energy expert.
Result: 8 German nuclear plants taken offline prematurely, and the German grid importing French and Czech nuclear power over red-hot transmission lines – so much for the effect wrt reducing nuclear energy production. In Germany: yes. In all of Europe: no, it’s just shifted. And: a German power company even booked an already mothballed Austrian oil-fuelled power plant last winter as reserve capacity because of lack of reserves.
All this translates into exploding cost of electrical power, and increased instability of the power grid – read as: milking of ratepayers, de-industrialization, and industries sensitive to brownouts moving offshore. Or straight bankruptcy, like Aluminum melter Voerdal this week, half of its total cost being electrical power.
The only positive effect so far: the “green conscience feeling satisfied”.
I think you’re right, Palopu. Not only have those industries that were large power users up country shut down, there’s also been a large loss of industrial power consumers elsewhere. In the lower mainland a number of sizeable sawmills have been eliminated. And while some did generate a portion of the power they used, many of them did not. Likewise on Vancouver Island. Where the pulp and paper mills at Gold River and Campbell River are both gone, and numerous sawmills have either been torn down, or downsized to one-shift operations.
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