Times Colonist (Victoria)
Wed 10 Oct 2001
Capital Region & Vancouver Island
B1 / Front
Business
Malcolm Curtis


B.C. Hydro is eying up to $45 million in outlays over three years to boost
the energy efficiency of schools, universities, colleges and hospitals.
It's one of several conservation measures the Crown utility is pursuing to
delay the need for another new gas-fired generating plant in the province,
recently appointed Hydro chairman Larry Bell said Tuesday.

``Measure us in a few years against that,'' Bell said during a wide-ranging
interview with the Times Colonist editorial board.

The institutional conservation plan is expected to wring major power
savings for the corporation, said Bell, who added that conservation ``is
number 1 for us.''

The plan, expected to be approved by Hydro's board this month, would
overhaul the heating, ventilation and lighting systems of up to 2,500
buildings, including those of 58 school boards.

The energy efficiencies will ``pay for themselves with a payback period of
four to five years'' and will add to the available power on Hydro's grid,
said Bell.

The refits are part of a revitalized PowerSmart program, begun 12 years ago
by Bell when he was CEO of Hydro under the Socreds. After languishing for
several years, soaring electricity prices have suddenly made the
energy-saving program fashionable again, mainly because it's cheaper than
generating new power.

Without a significant reduction in power consumption ``we will need another
plant somewhere in the province,'' said Bell. If another plant is built, he
said, ``I think it will be on the Island.''

That's on top of the planned $300-million gas-fired generating plant in
Port Alberni, which Hydro hopes to have in service in two years.

Bell said the location is ``not ideal'' -- he would have preferred
somewhere in the Cowichan Valley, which would have been more convenient for
transmission hookups.

But he defended Hydro's involvement in the project, a joint venture with
Calpine, a U.S. energy company and the associated Georgia Strait Crossing
(GSX) natural gas pipeline, a proposed joint venture with Williams, a U.S.
pipeline company.

Despite escalating costs for the Port Alberni plant and the $260-million
pipeline, Bell said generating electricity on Vancouver Island with natural
gas makes economic sense.

It's cheaper, he said, to build the pipeline than to refurbish aging
transmission lines that bring electricity to the Island. Two of those lines
will be out of commission by 2007 if not replaced.

But Bell said it also makes sense to generate more electricity on the
Island, which currently imports 80 per cent of its power from the mainland.
He said he is confident the Port Alberni plant, using the latest turbine
technology, will pass an environmental approval process.

Hydro has committed to developing 10 per cent of its new energy from green
sources, like wind, ocean and solar power. But in the next 10 years these
sources are not currently viable for larger scale generation, Bell said.

The utility is considering 70 green-energy proposals from across the
province for independent power producers, including ocean wave and wind
projects for the Island. But these will increase Hydro's electricity supply
by just two per cent.

Meanwhile, Bell and Hydro president Michael Costello acknowledged that a
new co-generating plant in Campbell River is experiencing teething
problems. The privately owned plant has technical problems and has not yet
been fully hooked into Hydro's power grid, though that was initially
expected last year.

Critics in the Campbell River area have also complained about environmental
problems with the plant, which has emissions worse than Sumas II. That's a
power plant proposed for the B.C.-Washington border that the Campbell
government has opposed.

But Bell said there is a crucial difference in the ``airshed'' around
Campbell River that makes it less of a pollution problem than at Sumas.

Other beefed-up components of PowerSmart include energy audits of B.C.'s
biggest 100 industrial users -- like pulp mills, sawmills and smelters --
that gobble a third of the province's electricity.

Hydro spokesman Shawn Thomas said PowerSmart is continuing to encourage
homeowners to save energy. The corporation's Web site has an ``online
energy audit'' capable of providing ideas on savimg money by cutting
electrical use.

Bell also revealed:

- Powerex, Hydro's trading arm, will not be privatized and will remain a
part of Hydro. However, it will compete for customers in B.C. with other
trading companies.

- A not-for-profit corporation, like the corporations running Vancouver and
Victoria's airports, will likely take over Hydro's transmission system.

- Burrard Thermal may be repowered to make it more efficient and less
polluting. ``We're looking at that,'' said Bell. The Liberals, while
campaigning in the election, said they would close down the Lower Mainland
gas-generating plant.

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