BC Hydro

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BC Hydro and Power Authority (BCHPA) is a Canadian electric utility in the province of British Columbia now known simply as BC Hydro. It is one of the largest electric utilities in Canada, serving more than 1.8 million customers in an area containing over 95 percent of British Columbia's population. As a provincial Crown corporation, BC Hydro reports to the BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, and is regulated by the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC). It is mandated to provide, "reliable power, at low cost, for generations."

BC Hydro operates 30 hydroelectric facilities and three natural gas-fueled thermal power plants. About 80 per cent of the province's electricity is produced by major hydroelectric generating stations on the Columbia and Peace Rivers. BC Hydro's various facilities generate between 43,000 and 54,000 gigawatt hours of electricity annually, depending on prevailing water levels.BC Hydro's capacity is about 11.3 gigawatts.^[1]

The Hugh Keenleyside Dam (left) was required under the Treaty, and was completed in 1968. The Arrow Lakes Generating Station (right) was only added in 2002.

Electricity is delivered through a network of 18,286 kilometers of transmission lines and 55,254 kilometers of distribution lines. For the 2008-2009 fiscal year, the domestic electric sales volume was 50,799 gigawatt hours and net income was $366 million, resulting in a return on equity of 11.75 per cent. As of March 31, 2009, BC Hydro and its subsidiaries employeed 5844 full time and part-time employees.^[2]

History

In 1957 BC Electric moved from its Carrall Street headquarters to a modern 21 story building on Burrard Street. In 1998 it was converted to condominiums and renamed the Electra Building.

BC Hydro was created in 1961 when the government of British Columbia, under Premier WAC Bennett, passed the BC Hydro Act. This act led to the amalgamation of BC Electric and the BC Power Commission, and the creation of the British Columbia Hydro Power and Authority (BCHPA).^[3]

The BC Power Commission was established with the Electric Power Act in 1945 by Premier John Hart. The mandate of the Power Commission was to amalgamate existing power and generating facilities across the province not served by BC Electric, and to extend service to the many smaller communities without power.^[4]

BC Electric began as the British Columbia Electric Railway (streetcar and lighting utility) in Victoria, Vancouver and New Westminster in 1898. Power was generated by coal fired steam plants. Increasing demand in the Edwardian boom years meant BC Electric sought expansions through Hydro power at Buntzen Lake, and later at Stave Lake. Sensible growth and expansion of the power, streetcar and coal gas utilities meant that BC Electric was a major company in the region. An English financier named Robert Horne-Payne secured the funding and created the large company from what had been a patchwork of small regional steam, hydro and diesel plants.

Also at this time, sawmills and factories converted to electricity, further increasing load. BC Electric erected more local hydro stations around the province. Similarly, small towns also built and operated their own power stations. More power transmission lines were built. Dams and hydro-electric generating stations were built on the Puntledge, Jordan, and Elk River in the 1920s.

BC Electric created one of the largest streetcar systems in the world with some 200 miles of track running from Point Grey to Chilliwack. There were both city street cars and interurban cars servicing Richmond, Burnaby, Vancouver and North Van.

By the First World War, private cars and jitneys were beginning to affect streetcar traffic. The expansion of private automobile ownership in the 1920s further constrained the expansion of streetcar lines. New dams were planned, including the diversion from the Bridge River to Seton Lake, near Lillooet, but the economic depression of the 1930s restricted business expansion. Also with the depression came an increase in the ridership, and a decrease in the maintenance of the streetcar system.

In 1947 the BC Power Commission completed John Hart Generating Station at Campbell River. In the early 1950s the aging streetcars and interurban trains were replaced by electric trolley busses, and diesel buses. BC Electric finally completed the Bridge River Generating Station in 1960. BC Electric amd later BC Hydro continued to operate the transit system by funding it with a small levy on the electric bill, until the transit system was taken over by BC Transit in 1980.

In 1958 BC Electric began construction of the Burrard Thermal Generating Station near Port Moody. It opened in 1961 and, although it is now fuelled only by natural gas, and operated only intermittently when needed, it continues to generate controversy due to its proximity to Vancouver and its associated greenhouse gas emissions.

On August 1st, 1961, just days after company president Dal Grauer died, the BC government passed the legislation which changed BC Electric from a private company to a crown corporation known as BC Hydro. In 1988 BC Hydro sold its Gas Division which distributed natural gas in the lower mainland and Victoria to Inland Natural Gas. Inland was acquired by Terasen in 1993.

The modern era

Revelstoke Dam on Columbia River, BC

Close-up view of penstocks at Revelstoke dam used to supply water from the reservoir to the turbines which drive the generators.

Between 1960 and 1980, BC Hydro completed six large hydro-electric generating projects. The first large dam was built on the Peace River near Hudson's Hope. The WAC Bennett Dam was built to create an energy reservoir for the Gordon M. Shrum Generating Station, which now produces about 3000 Megawatts of electric power. When it was completed in 1968, the dam was the largest earth-fill structure ever built. The Williston Lake reservoir is the largest lake in British Columbia. A second smaller concrete dam was later built downstream, closer to Hudson's Hope for the Peace Canyon Generating Station which was completed in 1980.

Under the terms of the Columbia River Treaty with the US, BC Hydro built a number of dams and hydro-electric generating stations including two large projects at Mica and Revelstoke on the Columbia River. The Keenleyside Dam on the Columbia River north of Castlegar and the Duncan Dam north of Kootenay Lake were also built under the same treaty and are used mainly for water control, although two generators were installed at Keenleyside in 2002. Kootenay Canal Generating Station on the Kootenay River between Nelson and Castlegar was completed in 1976. The Seven Mile Dam and Generating Station on the Pend d'Oreille River near Trail were completed in 1979.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s BC Hydro investigated the feasibility of geothermal power production at Meager Creek, north of Pemberton. They concluded from their testing that the underground rock wasn't permeable enough to justify large-scale production of electricity.^[5] Around the same time, BC Hydro initiated a project to develop a coal fired thermal generating station at Hat Creek near Cache Creek, but abandoned the effort in 1981 due to strong environmental opposition.^{[citation needed]} In 1989 the Power Smart and Resource Smart programs were initiated by BC Hydro to promote energy conservation as an alternative to the political difficulties of creating new generating facilities.

In 1996 the BC Government established the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) to regulate public energy utilities and to act as an independent, quasi-judicial regulatory agency regarding energy rates. BC Hydro exports and imports electric power through its wholly-owned power marketing and trading subsidiary, Powerex, which was established in 1998. BC Hydro belongs to a power sharing consortium which includes electric utilities in Alberta, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California.

In 2003 the BC government passed several pieces of legislation to redefine and regulate power utilities in British Columbia. The Transmission Corporation Act created the British Columbia Transmission Corporation (BCTC) which plans, operates and maintains the transmission system owned by BC Hydro. The BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act, while recognizing the value of low cost electricity produced by BC Hydro's existing "heritage assets," requires BC Hydro to meet the province's future needs for additional power through private developers and operators. These acts in conjunction with the government’s 2002 BC Energy Plan have allowed Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to sell intermittently available power to BC Hydro from installaitons which to date have typically been small scale run of the river projects.^[6] More recently, however, larger scale projects have be started, including Putonic Power's 196 megawatt Toba River and Montrose Creek run-of-river hydroelectric project being built with its partner GE Energy.^[7] Plutonic Power and GE Energy are proposing to develop approximately 1000 megawatts of hydroelectric capacity in the Toba and Bute Inlets.^[8] The BC Utilities Commission released a finding that these projects and policy were “not in the province’s best interests”^[9], in response to which the government has halted the inquiry.^[10]

Also in 2003, BC Hydro privatized the services provided by 1540 of its employees in its Customer Service, Westech IT Services, Network Computer Services, Human Resources, Financial Systems, Purchasing, and Building and Office Services groups. These services are now provided under contract by Accenture.^[11]

While BC Hydro initially looked at Site C on the Peace River near Fort Saint John in the late 1950s, it wasn’t until 1982 that it submitted a Site C development project to the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC). It was turned down by the BCUC at that time. In 2004 the BC government's Energy Plan^[12] instructed BC Hydro to begin discussions with First Nations, the Province of Alberta and communities to discuss Site C as a future option.^[13]

Renewable energy and conservation initiatives

BCTC high voltage transmission lines in Coquitlam.

BC Hydro's Power Smart program encourages energy conservation among its residential, commercial, and industrial customers. It also promotes energy saving retail products and building construction, and includes a Sustainable Communities Program. Its in-house Resource Smart program is used to identify and implement efficiency gains at existing BC Hydro facilities. BC Hydro also practices energy conservation at its generating facilities through the continuous monitoring and efficient use of the water resources used to power its generators.

BC Hydro is committed by the BC government's Energy Plan to achieve electricity self-sufficiency by 2016, with all new generation plants having zero net greenhouse gas emissions by the same year.^[14] Over half of the power needed to satisfy the demand gap is to come from conservation and retrofitting of existing facilities; the remaining 50% will come from both private and public sources.

BC Hydro has entered into energy purchase contracts with independent power producers to buy electricity generated from intermittant renewable sources, mainly from small capactity run of river hydro and more recently, wind power. The NaiKun Wind Energy Group^[15] is planning to install up to 110 Wind turbines at Naikoon Peninsula at the north end of the Hecate Strait. It is expected to deliver up to 396 megawatts of power to BC Hydro beginning in 2013. The Bear Mountain wind turbine project near Dawson Creek in the Peace District includes 34 turbines with a capacity to generatre up to 120 megawatts. It began producting power in August 2009.^[16] BC Hydro also buys power from industrial companies such as Alcan and Cominco and small regional plants.

BC Hydro has collaborated with a number of groups to promote energy conservation including the Gulf Islands Film and Television School (GIFTS).

See also

• Plutonic Power Corporation
• FortisBC

References

1. ^ "Our Facilities", BC Hydro website
2. ^ BC Hydro 2009 Annual Report:[1]
3. ^ Gaslights to Gigawatts, page 135, Hurricane Press, 1998.
4. ^ Gaslights to Gigawatts, page 73, Hurricane Press, 1998.
5. ^ Georgia Straight Article July 22, 2004: [2]
6. ^ Electriciy Legislation: [3]
7. ^ Pultonic Power Update: [4]
8. ^ Pultonic & GE Partner: [5]
9. ^ Government Halts BC Utilities Commission Enquiry, Rafe Mair Online, October 20, 2009
10. ^ Province Halts Major Transmission System Enquiry, Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun, October 20, 2009
11. ^ BC Hydro-Accenture Backgrounder: [6]
12. ^ BC Energy Plan: http://www.energyplan.gov.bc.ca/bcep/default.aspx?hash=7
13. ^ BC Hydro Site C Fact Sheet: [7]
14. ^ http://www.gov.bc.ca/fortherecord/energy/ee_environment.html?src=/environment/ee_environment.html
15. ^ NaiKun Wind Energy Group: http://www.naikun.ca/
16. ^ Bear Mountain Wind Park: [8]

External links

• BC Hydro company website
• Power Pioneers
• British Columbia Transmission Corporation
• History: Founding
• History 1929-45
• History 1945-62