Hydro to reveal plans for upgrade
By Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
06-Oct-2005
BC Hydro will reveal plans later this month for British Columbia's biggest electricity system upgrade in a generation.
Hydro has been looking at every plausible power option except nuclear energy -- the list includes hydro, wind, gas and coal generation -- in a plan to head off and eventually eliminate B.C.'s dependence on foreign electricity imports.
"This is the next 20 years we are looking at here, and we haven't done anything this significant since maybe 1995," Stephen Bruyneel, director of corporate communications and public affairs for Hydro, said in an interview Wednesday.
"Overlaying all this work is a goal of making British Columbia energy self-sufficient over the next 20 years. We'd like to get to a point where we would be able to rely on our own resources."
The plan may open a Pandora's box.
Electricity production options are set out in a series of briefing papers provided in late September to members of a provincial "integrated electricity planning" committee.
The committee was struck to provide input to Hydro on the best combination of options.
The briefing documents say the cheapest source of power is conservation through energy efficiency projects such as Power Smart.
Hydro ranks the Site C dam No. 1 for lowest cost electricity generation behind conservation -- followed by geothermal, wind, small hydro, coal, and a re-powering of the aging Burrard Thermal gas-fired generating plant in Port Moody.
Bruyneel cautioned that the list is more of a "snapshot" than an authoritative financial study, using numbers provided by industry, and was intended to facilitate discussion.
"They are just preliminary estimates. Obviously until somebody went and bid it into a call you wouldn't know exactly what they were willing to spend on it or how much it's going to cost," Bruyneel said.
Factors complicating those estimates include the future price of natural gas and any surcharges that may apply to greenhouse gas emissions produced by coal- or gas-fired generating plants.
Recent Hydro planning documents examine everything from "controversy" over the proposed $3.5-billion Site C dam on the Peace River to "NIMBYism" in regions of the province that don't produce as much electricity as they consume.
For example, Hydro documents report that there is support around the province for requiring the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island to take a bigger role in new power generation since both are net consumers of electricity.
Alternatively, Hydro suggests that pulling Site C out of a portfolio of new projects could raise the overall cost of energy independence by $200 million and would effectively put responsibility for all new electricity supply into the hands of the private sector.
Bruyneel said a decision by Hydro's board of directors will be announced later this month.
It will likely be a political football, as the final decision on power options rests with the Hydro board and B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld.
POWER PLAY:
Some of the power generation options being examined by BC Hydro:
- Site C Peace River dam
- Repowering Burrard Thermal
- South Meager Geothermal Project
- Pulverized coal
- Wind power