Independent Power Producers Get Regional District Support

Friday, July 20, 2007 04:00 AM

Recently , B.C. Hydro put out a call for independent power projects. Duke Peterson says his project could satisfy the requirements for such energy.

He is proposing 9 small power projects along Beaver Creek about 12 kilometers east of McBride. Peterson made a presentation to the Regional District of Fraser Fort George asking for support for independent power producers.

Peterson says his projects would create 60 construction jobs over 3-4 years, and once the projects were complete, the site would create 3 full time and several part time jobs.

The spinoff benefits for the community would include "island" power supply for the community of Valemount, which has suffered in the past when B.C. Hydro has been "down". Peterson also says the taxes and water rights payments would be about $1.2 million dollars a year.

Will the rates be the same as being paid now? Not likely says Peterson. The current rates reflect older facilities, but if there is an expectation for new facilities to be constructed, there would have to be an increase to reflect the new costs.

The facilities are expected to create 7 megawatts of power in the winter, which could supply power to about 7,000 homes. The facilities would produce much more power in the summer.

McBride Mayor Mike Frazier says the main concern is the transmission line, which would be along the highway 16 corridor. "We continue on arguing for bigger better opportunities for industry but getting the transmission line from Tete Jaune to McBride is a $15 million dollar investment."

Frazier also took the opportunity to thank the independent power producers for their efforts to keep the region supplied with electricity "With all the troubles we have had out there, be it landslides, fires, windstorms, lightning, these guys and their team have broken their backs to try and provide power out there, in spite of B.C. Hydro sometimes, so, hair on you guys and thanks so much for all the efforts you've made out there to be stand alone, or try to stand alone and subsidise our system and keep things going, because at times, you were the only ones doing it."

Director Don Zurowski says currently we are currently net importers of electricity, and while the environmental impact studies have not been done, certainly a generic letter of support would be in order.

The Regional District has approved support "in principle" for support of projects involving independent power producers.

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Posted on Friday, July 20, 2007 04:00 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Bridge on July 20 2007 10:32 AM

"We are currently net importers of electricity." Zurowski performs another of his parrot tricks by mimicking BC Hydro. Yes they tell us we have to import power to satisfy ower needs. But they never tell us how much power is being exported by Power X to our freinds to the south.

We don't want Site C but it would be OK to destroy Beaver Creek for the want of more power. Now its the Beaver. Will it be the Holmes next and where will it stop?

Cheers

Posted by: Triman on July 20 2007 6:08 PM

Just wanted to comment about the importing of power statements made by Hydro.

It works this way: Hydro is able to close its generating capability with the flick of a switch or some similar method to allow for the generators to run freely without added costs. This is done when the power is available at a rate lower than Hydro's cost of production from the plants in Alberta and in the States. The coal or gas fired plants cannot be shutdown easily and must continue to produce power whether their customers need it or not, therefore it is sold to Hydro at a rate lower than Hydro can produce it.

When the plants in Alberta and the States need extra power, Hydro sells it to them at a higher rate that it costs Hydro to produce. This way they make money at peak times and save money at times when power is not needed in BC. This is particularly true when you are in different time zones and your peak periods of power demands are different.

Does that make sense???

Posted by: Palopu on July 20 2007 9:18 PM

If Zurowski says its so, then it isnt so.

Posted by: Chadermando on July 21 2007 12:16 AM

It would be nice to have a web-link to this guys website that details his proposal in a way that informs the public on the key facts as he sees it surrounding the main obvious concerns of the public. People usually want to know if he will destroy a pristine mountain river, kill fish and other wildlife habitat, in addition to what kind of similar projects have been done in the past, as hypothetical examples of what to expect.

By not providing this information openly to all; we can all then assume that this guy is not a serious man with his intensions toward a public asset as precious as a BC watershed. Its not enough to rub the right politician the right-or-left way.

I think when it involves this level of invasion into a watershed we should all get a vote (referendum) as to if it is in the publics interest for the project to go ahead.

How is it you can not bottle water, but you can create a feast-famine extreme flow of the water source that is potentially exponentially worse to the whole eco-system? It makes no sense; and I just don�t like the whole idea of privatizing our watersheds, and registering our private residential wells, and allowing small take-over start-up watershed management corps that are future take-over targets for large multinationals that would want to supersede our national rights to our water resources. I think it is all wrong. I don�t care about the privatization of power production.

Independent power production is for wind and wave power, maybe some solar, possibly coal in Tumbler (wind blows to Alberta), and then the obvious wood waste bio-energy that the whole idea is intended to generate idea�s for. No surprise the first project put forward is a precursor to robbing our water resource rights.

We need a law that says if we are to have any hydro generation in BC it will be publicly owned and operated by BC Hydro. If the need is there then BC Hydro does site c.

Posted by: Chadermando on July 21 2007 12:27 AM

People should remember this proposal. It could be a future watershed milestone in the history books as to when we gave our rights to our public water away to the multinational NWO (New World Order).

Future generations will pay a slave like consumption tax for the basic water and we will wonder what was the purpose of this, and how did we get here anyways?

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on July 21 2007 7:28 AM

"If Zurowski says its so, then it isnt so."

Ya, and Palopu likes another city councilor whose initials are B.S. HaHa!!

Posted by: Bridge on July 21 2007 10:46 AM

"The coal or gas fired plants cannot be shutdown easily and must continue to produce power".
We are importing power produced by coal and gas. Thats even dummer then telling us that we are importing electricity and use it as an excuse for private power producers to destroy our water sheds .It appears that profit is the bottom line.

Yet the provincial government slapped a 2% levy on our hydro bill so who gets the profit? Are we destroying our water sheds to pay for the olympics? But then thats not news.

The peak power concept using different time zones has been around for a long time.There again profit screwd that idea rather then "service". It is more profitable to sell our surplus to the USA then transmit power from east to west to take advantage of peak power loads from different time zones.

There are many things that need to be done differently but there appears to be no will to do so.

Cheers