Duke Point Power – still the wrong solution for Vancouver Island
Thomas Hackney
Times-Colonist
24 Feb 2005
BC Hydro has flip-flopped between two basic justifications for the Duke Point plant: the capacity situation on Vancouver Island and BC’s long-term requirements. When confronted with evidence that the Island’s electricity supply can effectively be bridged for a year until new sub-sea transmission cables will be in service, BC Hydro responds that Duke Point is needed for BC’s long-term supply. But when challenged that the long-term cost of gas may well make it prohibitive to run the plant, Hydro switches back and claims Duke Point is needed to cover the one or two year gap between the 2007 zero-rating (NOT decommissioning) of some existing cables and the in-service date for new cables, which the BC Transmission Corporation confidently expects by October 2008.
Actually, the Duke Point plant is a relic of the Glen Clark government’s 1996 energy scheme, whereby BC Hydro was ordered not to renew the sub-sea cables and to build on-Island gas-fired generation instead.
There is a simple but misleading logic to the formula that (to paraphrase), “The cables [actually, just some of them] will be retired; therefore the lights are going out; therefore we need more power plants.” But claims that the Island is facing blackouts defy the evidence.
During last January’s record peak loads, BC Hydro’s on-Island service was NOT curtailed, as claimed by Jeff Myers (President of Pristine Power, Duke Point Power’s parent company: Scrutiny attests to power project's value, 21 January). We experienced those record loads precisely because the system DID meet all the extra demand, carried by the aging High Voltage DC cables.
And what happens after the HVDC cables are zero-rated in 2007? Yakout Mansour, senior Vice-President of BC Transmission Corporation, has testified and said publicly that there are reasonable bridging measures. And it is emphatically NOT true that, as Mr. Myers claims, “the Island's capacity shortfall cannot be met by replacing the cable alone.” Rated at 600 MW, the 230 kV system has ample capacity to meet present and near-future needs.
Why do the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition and others (including industrial users) want renewed cable transmission instead of on-Island gas-fired generation? The answers are, essentially, balance and cost.
Granted, BC Transmission Corporation strongly prefers not to employ the bridging measures. Granted, BCTC supports on-Island generation to enhance on-Island service. But it is not BCTC’s job to weigh system security against broader social costs. At the Town Hall Meeting in Nanaimo last January, public submissions on the Duke Point Plant were overwhelmingly opposed, with a large majority of presentations linking the power plant to global warming and climate change and Canada’s international commitment, under Kyoto, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Duke Point Power proposal has no effective plans to offset the 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year that would be emitted.
Regarding electricity costs, Jeff Myers of Pristine claims: “Duke Point's economics are sound. Duke Point will only run when economic.”
The economics are certainly sound for Pristine Power. To run the plant, BC Hydro has to supply the gas, taking all the fuel price risk, and pay the operating costs. But BC Hydro also must pay $35 million per year over the next twenty-five years – $875 million – even if the plant is never run. Turning off the plant when gas prices are high will be small comfort to BC Hydro ratepayers.
Since 2000, the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition has campaigned against BC Hydro’s electricity strategy for Vancouver Island, which initially included a pipeline and a 640 MW power plant in the Duncan area, as well as the 252 MW plant currently proposed for Duke Point. Having participated in three regulatory reviews, (one federal; two before the BC Utilities Commission), the Coalition is well qualified to speak on this issue. Our evidence and arguments are extensively cited in the Utilities Commission’s 2003 decision to reject Duke Point’s predecessor, the Vancouver Island Generation Project.
The Coalition believes we should take a long-term, balanced view of the Island’s electricity needs. If BC Hydro can get through its present crisis mode of thinking, it will, hopefully, start weighing the long-term advantages of non-fossil fuel energies. They are inexhaustible, not subject to price volatility, and they do not further global climate change.
Thomas Hackney
Thomas Hackney is President of the GSX Concerned Citizens Coalition