Independent producers vital to the grid

Bev Van Ruyven
Times Colonist (Victoria)
17-Jul-2005

COMMENT: This letter from BC Hydro is a somewhat defensive response to the flaming it received from Steve Davis of the IPPBC last week.

Re: "Jilted power producers give Hydro a strong jolt," Les Leyne, July 9.

We value the Independent Power Producers of B.C. (IPPBC) and its individual members, and based on feedback as recent as last week thought the relationship was getting more positive. A meeting has been set up with Steve Davis to discuss his specific concerns in more detail.

We are extremely proud of our accomplishments to date working together with B.C.'s IPPs. Those include securing 39 electricity purchase agreements since 2000 for projects that range from biomass to small hydro to landfill gas. Together, they have added 2,800 gigawatt-hours of energy to B.C.'s integrated system, which is enough power for roughly 280,000 homes.

Our fall call for energy was issued July 8, with the expected outcome to be 1,800 GW.h, or enough power for another 180,000 homes. In developing this call, we actively solicited comments from the IPP community to ensure the process met their needs. More than 200 IPPs, stakeholders and First Nations participated in the process, providing us with more than 1,000 comments. As a result, we expect this call to be at least as successful as the previous ones in helping us meet our goal of providing reliable power, at low cost, for the future.

Bev Van Ruyven,
Senior Vice-President, Distribution,
B.C. Hydro.