In an energy announcement at Clover Point Monday morning that was brimming with ebullient confidence, there was one factor that was downplayed.
It was the distinct whiff of anxiety about B.C.’s overall energy picture in the years ahead.
Premier David Eby announced an open-ended call for 5,000 gigawatt-hours per year of power (roughly another Site C’s worth) from large renewable projects. It was billed as a “forward-thinking, ambitious plan to drive growth and transformative change.”
Sounds great. But they did the same thing 13 months ago. B.C. Hydro and the energy minister of the day made the same ambitious call for more generation to create jobs and drive sustainable growth — and got three times the capacity it was asking for in the initial responses. B.C. Hydro said then that it expected to issue such calls for power every two years. The next one was expected in 2026.
Monday’s call is a year ahead of that schedule, almost twice as big as last year’s and there are no limits on project size this time. It is part of an even broader suite of measures to cope with future power needs.
It leaves the impression those needs are even more acute than officials are acknowledging.
After some calls for power in the first years of the B.C. Liberal government, (the NDP government commissioned a report in 2019 that found them economically disastrous), B.C. Hydro went 15 years without opening any more opportunities. The Site C mega-project started taking shape, and there was a standing offer that produced some small-scale projects.
After last year’s call for proposals, 21 producers filed concepts, most of them wind farms, and ten were accepted by B.C. Hydro, which could power about 500,000 homes.
You’d think that would have handled the load for a while. Particularly when the $16-billion Site C dam is expected to be fully operational later this year.
But Eby and Energy Minister Adrian Dix doubled down Monday and opened another call. In addition, they are requesting interest in exploring capacity and firm, base load projects (read: hydro, geo-thermal) to meet peak demands and give back-up to the intermittent supplies.
There’s also a request for interest in another round of power-smart type projects to manage demand. The announcement came on top of a move earlier this year to fast-track wind farms by way of exempting them from environmental reviews.
To sum up Dix’s explanation: “We do need to get the projects done.”
B.C. Hydro and the government have acknowledged all the factors that go into the power picture: sustained rainfall reductions from climate change and increased demand forecasts due to the electrification drive.
There’s also the huge pent up demand for more industrial power already in the queue, acknowledged in the “Powering Our Future” plan last year.
But Eby elevated another above all others on Monday.
“Perhaps most importantly, this will help build a strong foundation at a time of external threats to our sovereignty and prosperity.”
The entire west coast of the continent is an interconnected power grid and B.C. routinely relies on U.S. power on occasion. But President Trump proves daily you can’t depend on the U.S. for anything these days.
Barry Penner, a former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister who now heads the Energy Futures Institute, said the NDP government is “scrambling to catch up.”
Although Dix said the B.C. and U.S. power trades back and forth are in balance, Penner said B.C. relies on the U.S. for up to a quarter of its power needs and has done so for the last three years.
Growth in B.C.’s power needs has been eased over the years by the shutdown of pulp mills and sawmills, he said.
But even as subsidies for electric vehicles are removed, projected demand is ramping up.
The NDP had a long-running argument with the previous B.C. Liberal government about it’s insistence on “self-sufficiency” when it came to electricity.
It turns out they are now keen on what amounts to the same thing.
Clean Energy Canada said Monday’s announcement is a “no regrets” move.
Maybe so, but if the timing doesn’t work out, there may be regrets this all wasn’t started sooner.
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