Public Speaks Up on Long Term Plans for B.C. Hydro

Thursday, March 24, 2011 04:00 AM

P.G. resident Nick Chapman fills in his comments on the B.C Hydro IRP

Prince George, B.C. - The public consultation process for B.C. Hydro's long term "Integrated Resource Plan" (IRP) continues and last night, an open house was held in Prince George.

The IRP hopes to outline Hydro's plans to make sure there are resources in place to meet the electricity demands for the next 20 years.

The public was asked to focus on five areas:

Conservation and Efficiency
Electricity Generation Options: which includes a mix of bio-mass, run-of-river, wind, and dams(Site C), natural gas, and new technologies such as tidal and wave.
Electrification: as many sectors move away from fossil fuels ( such as transportation) the IRP will try to look at how that change will impact demand for electricity
Transmission Planning: what will need to be done in the way of transmissin line development to meet the demand for electricity over the next 30 years
Export Market Potential: The Clean Energy Act includes the objective that B.C. be a net exporter of clean or renewable power.

Basil Stromberg is one of the B.C. Hydro IRP planners. He says the feedback during this round of public consultation has been varied "Generally speaking people are interested in conservation. But we probably can't meet all of our demand growth with energy conservation. There's been lots of interesting discussion about the different resource options available. There's been lots of interest in Site C, and there has been diverse opinion about what we should do with Site. C." Site C is a multi- billion dollar project that would put a dam on the Peace River near Ft. St. John.

Stromberg says people are genuinely surprised that B.C. Hydro cannot meet the gap between the power it can supply and the demand with just one resource "It's news to them that we have to mix resources and really it's not just one resource." According to the workbook distributed to those who attended the open house, run -of-river would be the cheapest power production at a cost of about $58-$200 per MWH of electricity. Large scale solar energy would cost between $351 and $410 per MWH, and Site C would be in the $85 per MWH range, however, that estimation is based on a decades old design which pegged the cost at $6.6 billion dollars and that cost has yet to be finalized.

Stromberg says although there is a new leader of the B.C. Government, the questions being asked of the public are "Fairly fundamental. Maybe the timing is good because the government has asked us to go out and consult and hear what people have said, and sum it up for them. So it's probably a good time for the Ministry to be looking at this with fresh eyes."

Nick Chapman was one of the people who attended last night's session, he doesn't support independent power production and doesn't like wind turbines. He says his input for B.C Hydro is to go ahead with Site C.

Attending an open house is not the only method in which people can express their opinions on how B.C. Hydro should plan for the future. The public consultation is into its second stage now. A draft report of all feedback will be produced once the April 30th deadline for input has passed. Then a third stage will take place this fall when B.C Hydro will ask stakeholders to look at the preliminary recommendations after which a final report will be presented to the government at the end of this year.

Anyone wanting to provide feedback can do so by clicking here and selecting the preferred feedback method.

Previous Story - Next Story

Email |

Print |

Facebook |

Twitter |

Digg |

Del.icio.us

Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 04:00 AM in News by 250 News

Return to Home

Comments

Posted by: He spoke on March 24 2011 8:25 AM

site C or nuclear? Hmmmm seems like the opportunity is ripe.

Posted by: Harbinger on March 24 2011 9:53 AM

If I cut back noticeably on my electrical consumption will my Hydro bill be reduced noticeably too? If I pay less money to BC Hydro, they won't be able to pay their bills and use my money to expand and improve their business. What to do? Woe is them. Whatever happens with this public relations gesture/dog and pony show, we can be assured we will be paying more for our Hydro. It's in the cards. Ya don't need a fortune teller to tell you that we are gonna pay more. The cost of anything today in this world does not go down. Doncha know? When was the last time ya got a letter from some company saying yer rates are gonna be adjusted? The only "adjustment" is upwards.

Posted by: Palopu on March 24 2011 10:23 AM

Considering that BC Hydro is a Government entity, and that it exports a lot of power to the USA through its export arm *PowerEx* we should be asking the question.

How much power is exorted to the USA and how much money is paid to Hydro for this power, how much of this money is transferred to the BC Government into General Revenues, and then pissed away on stupid projects???

Is the Government using the export of power to the USA as a revenue generator. Do we really need to continue to build more and more power generating facilities to supply the American demand??

You would be pretty had pressed to make a case for a huge increase in power usage in BC. The fact of the matter is we have had a huge decline in power using companies in BC in the last 20 years.. The Americans on the other hand seem to use more and more on a regular basis.

We shuld be looking at suppling **really** cheap power to our Schools, Hospitals, and Government facilities, before we start to export this power to the Americans. As it now stands we own Hydro, pay for all the people who work there, pay for all the Hydro we use, and then we pay for the Hydro that the Schools, etc; use through a different set of taxes.

We need some clarity as to where all Government money is spent, so that we can make decisions based of fact, not smoke and mirrors.

To build Site C and flood the Country just to produce more power for Export is not a very smart decision. If I lived in that part of the Country I would be 100% opposed to Site C. Seems people are in favour of these types of projects as long as they are not in thier back yard.

Why dont we propose a Site D. We could dam the Fraser River at the Fort George Canyon. This would create a lake that would flood all the way to Vanderhoof on the Nechako, and to Mcbride to the East. We could generate all kinds of electricity for the Americans. Of course Prince George would be under water, but what the hell, whats more important, electricity, or peoples property.

Posted by: PrinceGeorge on March 24 2011 11:14 AM

Since I am not anti-American I have no problem with BCHydro generating lots of clean green electricity and making a big bundle exporting some of it to our neighbours to the south.

After all, they own most of our industry and would most assuredly come to aid Canada if our borders would come under attack to protect their investments. They have the most sophisticated military in the world and they would not hesitate for a second to protect our country if anybody would physically dare attack us.

We are what we are: neighbours, friends and allies.

Posted by: BCRacer on March 24 2011 1:11 PM

In my opinion Hydro needs to fire the person, I believe incompetant they have running this operation.
What other business does not have to set aside funds to maintain their operations and upgrades and eventual replacement of equiptment.
Apparently not hydro.....
they just up our rates and we pay for their incompetance.
I have followed all of their suggestions to cut my electricity usage and rates only to have them say or good job but now we aren't amking any money so we are raising your rates... mine just went up almost 25% from last year... so be prepared people.... it is happening when they said it was going up 50%....

Posted by: acrider54 on March 24 2011 1:52 PM

The Liberal government takes most of the profits made by BC Hydro for projects such as new roof on BC Place

Posted by: PrinceGeorge on March 24 2011 2:16 PM

I wonder if the NDP government took most of the profits made by BC Hydro without setting aside funds to to maintain its operations and upgrades and eventual replacement of equipment?

Posted by: uyterlindekel on March 24 2011 4:15 PM

Well said Palopu, the sentiment isn't "anti-American" so much as "Pro Canadian". I have no problem selling power to the Americans. I have a problem with selling to them at our expense. All the while making sure they pay. I can promise you, the American Gov't wouldn't do anything for us at a cost to themselves. You look out for family first, not to the extreme neglect of the neighbors, but you don't shaft your own.
It's called greed. I don't want Site C to go ahead. It's hardly a "green" option. I'm no tree hugger, but flooding fantastic farmland and wilderness is not OK in this environmentally conscious era.

Posted by: seamutt on March 24 2011 4:40 PM

Site C has to be built to backup wind generators and run of the river plants both being intermittent power. Power is also exported to Alberta. The plan is to develop power for export, that is stated.

Remember Hydro is run by government, that is where they get thier marching orders.

Posted by: supertech on March 24 2011 10:43 PM

If you want something to fail miserably, let the Government fix it.

Posted by: acrider54 on March 25 2011 5:20 AM

"I wonder if the NDP government took most of the profits made by BC Hydro without setting aside funds to to maintain its operations and upgrades and eventual replacement of equipment?"

Use your head PG of course they skimmed the profits. You think any other government would not do the same. The Liberals are just a little more greedy. IMHO of course.