Wind power strong as Hydro courts private producers
B.C. Hydro opened up its anticipated first call in 15 years for private-power producers Wednesday to supply the province's grid with enough electricity to power the equivalent of 270,000 homes by 2031 at a cost of up to $3.6 billion.
And there are potentially dozens of suitors lining up in the wings preparing bids with 28 applications for exploratory land-use permits filed with the province by proponents of wind, solar and hydro power developments.
Entities exploring wind power are the most numerous with 21 applications including three from the Quebec-headquartered independent power producer Innergex Renewable Energy Inc., one of the biggest operators among B.C. Hydro's existing portfolio of 125 IPPs.
“We are working on tight timelines, but working with government and B.C. Hydro, I'm confident that my members will be able to work with our First Nations partners on meeting those (timelines),” said Kwatuuma, who goes by the English name Cole Sayers, and is executive director of Clean Energy B.C., the industry association for private power producers.
“We're all interested in making this call successful and my industry members are all excited and prepared.”
The private-power sector felt sidelined by former B.C. Liberal premier Christy Clark's decision in 2014 to approve Hydro's Site C dam project, which was confirmed by former NDP premier John Horgan's government upon election in 2017.
B.C. Hydro's most recent integrated resource plan, however, estimates that demand to power the province's Clean B.C. ambitions for electrifying B.C.'s vehicle fleet, home heating and industry will start to outstrip Site C's supply
before the end of the decade, said Energy and Mines Minister Josie Osborne.
Osborne and B.C. Hydro CEO Chris O'Riley launched the call in Victoria giving independent power producers until Sept. 16 to submit their bids to fill the anticipated need for 3,000 gigawatt hours per year, on short timelines with the first to start coming online by 2028.
IN ADDITION TO SITE C
The minister announced last fall that B.C. Hydro would be opening bids to deliver new power for the first time in 15 years, which will be in addition to electricity from Site C, which the utility expects to start coming online by the end of the year.
B.C.'s NDP was critical of the IPP purchases by the former B.C. Liberal government launched by ex-premier Gordon Campbell, but Osborne said this call will be competitive, looking to attract big investments to “keep costs down for ratepayers by paying a fair price and generate new opportunities for First Nations.”
Osborne added government has “learned from the mistakes of the
past,” referring to Campbell's energy self-sufficiency policy that saw B.C. buy IPP power at a time that it wasn't needed and at prices she blamed for rate increases averaging five per cent per year during that government's term.
Premier David Eby has promised to keep B.C. Hydro's rates low and, in his government's latest budget, offered ratepayers a $100 cost-ofliving credit on electricity bills, though rates also increased 2.3 per cent as of April 1.
B.C. Liberal finance critic Peter Milobar, however, criticized the government's move as “scrambling to reinvigorate that exact same program,” considering the potential power shortages facing B.C. have been known “for the better part of almost 20 years.”
“This government's response was to cancel IPP projects a few years ago purposely just for political reasons,” Milobar said in a scrum Wednesday outside the legislature.
Rates, however, don't yet reflect the $16-billion cost of Site C.