Net-importer or not?
BC Hydro's 2008 Annual Report says this:
Total BC generation: 59,995 GWh
Total BC consumption: 53,300 GWh
Surplus: 6,695 GWh
It's pretty clear: in 2008, BC generated considerably more power than British Columbians consumed. And that's the aspect of energy self-sufficiency that we should be concerned about, should it not?
In terms of meeting domestic demand, BC generates or acquires more power than it needs from domestic sources.
Everything else is tied up with the energy trading biz.
Net ...drumroll... EXPORTER!
You can quit reading here, if this stuff bores you. Wonks, read on...
We have talked about and questioned this net-importer story that has served the BC government, BC Hydro, and others so well, for most of this century. Few among us are sure what's really happening, we don't trust the net-importer dogma, so they continue saying "net-importer", we say "baloney", and it goes on and on, like the Everyready Bunny. (Anybody know what you get if you put the battery in the bunny backwards?)
It could cost $5,000 to $10,000 to do an expert analysis of the net sources and dispositions of electricity, and get a definitive answer to the question. I'd like to see that study done, if anyone wants to pony up for it. But then we'd still be left with a Marvin Shaffer vs. Mark Jaccard stand-off; expert vs. expert with most of us still as perplexed and mistrustful as ever.
I've been taking a simpler approach to this question. Once a year, BC Hydro publishes its annual report. It includes tables (see below) showing its costs for power, and where it comes from, and its revenues for power sold, and where it is sold. I think it's pretty persuasive.
The tables also have two great advantages over the $10,000 treatment: they are relatively easy to understand, and they come from the horse's mouth so they are difficult to argue with.
They are the source for the figures I used at the top of this note.
The tables actually include quite a bit more information. You can find BC Hydro's 2008 Annual Report and BC Hydro's other annual reports here.
The tables show that in 2008, BC Hydro sold marginally less energy than it bought, but it still earned $157 million on the trades. And this included a big transfer of energy from the domestic to the trade account.
BC Hydro's notes include this caution: "Prior to fiscal 2008, BC Hydro was a net importer of electricity for seven consecutive years due to average or below average system water conditions every year. Fiscal 2008 was an exceptional inflow year, with inflows well above normal, resulting in BC Hydro being a net seller of electricity. The outlook for fiscal 2009 is for a return to average inflow conditions and, as a result, it is expected that BC Hydro will once again be a net importer of electricity."
Hmm. Let's have a quick look at those previous years. Dunno what they're talking about. It looks like a surplus every year in the domestic accounts AND in the total numbers. The trade figures are less consistent. BC Hydro only started showing trade purchases in 2005; in the four years since, there has been alternating years of more sold than bought, and more power bought than sold. Prior to that, the trade purchases are not broken out in the annual reports. In 2006, when BC Hydro shows that it sold more power than it acquired in the trade account, it still profited $254 million for the year.
Charts here:
"http://www.sqwalk.com/bc2009/BCH2008EnergyCostsTable.gif"
"BCH2008EnergyCostsTable.gif"
One important aspect of this importing issue is that we buy energy from coal-fired generation plants in Alberta and elsewhere. Powerex even has a contract to buy all the output from a coal-fired generater in Montana. If we're going to reduce our carbon emissions, we have to stop doing that. And by the same token, we have to stop exporting fossil fuels - our coal to Japan and Korea and China - and natural gas to the US.