My children’s grandmother spent final years in our home. She lived for the children and was an oxygen-tank-dragging regular in front row seats at hockey rinks, ball fields, rec centres and concert […]
Do they wonder why fewer people pay attention?
Neither fair nor balanced
With mounting losses, declining consumption, soft markets for surplus power, $58.3 billion committed to high cost private power and a massive capital spending plan, only BC Liberals and their minions can see anything positive on the horizon for BC Hydro.
What’s another billion or twenty?
Moody’s Investors Service issued a warning this week about rising debt at B.C. Hydro. In the first six months of fiscal year 2017, term debt increased $1.3 billion to $19.5 billion. That number is up $7.8 billion during Christy Clark’s time as Premier, which is an increase larger than the total term debt incurred in the utility’s first 48 years of operation. Of course, debt has been rising quickly despite current consumption being the lowest in the preceding 12 years.
Swag, the Liberal raison d’être
Swag is what British Columbia’s Liberal Party is about. Whether it’s cash-for-access, pay-to-play, quango patronage or tried and true scratch-my-back contracting, Liberals are practiced at converting public wealth to private. BC Hydro is an example. The utility paid private power producers over $9 billion between 2003 and 2016. But, that’s only the start.
My time with NW’s Jon McComb, Oct 5/16
Just asking
Follow this link and read my commentaries about BC Hydro. Listen to CKNW on Wednesday after the 9am news. I’ll be talking with Jon McComb. ipp-purchases-and-market-prices
By the numbers
BC Hydro has experienced flat demand for more than a decade. Nevertheless, the value of its assets have grown 250% and purchases of private power grew 280% since 2005. Add to this, the fact it has committed to spend another $10 billion or so to build the Site C dam. It is inexplicable.
2005→2016 IPP purchases ↑↑ $835m ↑↑
BC Hydro has three particularly important types of customers. These consumers, all inside British Columbia, are categorized as: Residential, Commercial and light industry, Heavy industry. There are others outside the province but BC […]
BC Hydro encore
At my Tyee article BC Hydro: From Public Interest to Private Profits, a couple of commenters associated with BC Hydro and the Liberal Party dispute statistics. However, the numbers I use are from BC […]
BC Hydro: From Public Interest to Private Profits
An almost quote from James Boren, “Every Liberal has a right to fuzzify, profundify and drivelate. It’s a part of our freedom of speech…If people can understand what is being said in Victoria, they might want to take over their own government again.”
Damn the torpedoes…
Leaders cannot keep marching in the same direction simply because they have invested heavily in a particular course of action. Instead, leaders must react to changing conditions and be willing to shift direction accordingly, perhaps even to pivot one hundred eighty degrees if the situation warrants it. This is not a complex direction but it doesn’t resonate with the small minds running government in Victoria. Regarding BC Hydro, they’ve become overly committed to announced policies despite consistently poor results and clear evidence of failure.
Let facts speak
BC Liberals claim NDP doesn’t want to talk about their record at BC Hydro. In fact, it is the Liberals who don’t want to talk about the NDP record.
$4.9 billion extra generated by IPPs, updated
BC Hydro has been managed to deliver billions of dollars in benefits to independent power producers. Had IPPs been left to sell their product to the same free market that BC Hydro trades into, they would have gained 4.9 billion fewer revenue dollars since 2003.
Confusing wishes for needs
During their tenure, BC Liberals declared increases in private power purchases and aggressive expansion of BC Hydro assets were needed to meet growing demands by consumers. After 2005, electricity sales mocked that claim. So, the politicians asserted a need to serve North America by supplying clean energy. Others were better equipped to apply new technologies and they didn’t believe BC’s river damaging energy was particularly green. The goal changed again, to powering a trillion dollar LNG industry that would add $9 billion a year to the public treasury. When that was revealed as fantasy, Liberals suggested BC could provide clean energy to enable Albertans to harvest dirty energy from bituminous sands. Recently, Christy Clark said the Site C dam was needed to flood the Peace River valley as a measure to prevent flooding of the Peace River valley. The Premier needed a new justification for building the dam after it became clear that plans to sell to Alberta were as realistic as paying off provincial debt with natural gas revenue.
With CKNW’s Jon McComb, Aug 2
Listen to the audio from my August 2 conversation with CKNW morning man Jon McComb.
Damien Gillis wrote…
The mainstream media, as is to be expected, is largely parroting the government’s cover story and ignoring the real problem: BC Hydro and its ratepayers are in a world of hurt because of 12 years of very deliberate and disastrous BC Liberal Government policies, pushed on the public utility.
Motivated by greed, not by need
“Conservation is the cleanest, easiest and least expensive way to meet the increasing demand for electricity in B.C. – it’s like building a virtual dam.” – Bob Elton, BC Hydro President and […]
BC Hydro – destruction in progress
In 2001, for each dollar of assets, BC Hydro had 63¢ in electricity sales. In 2016, the number fell to 17¢. BC Hydro sold more electricity to residential, commercial and industrial customers in 2005 than the utility did in 2016. BC Hydro did that with assets worth 40% of today’s value. Shockingly, the company is embarked on a program of capital expenditure that will add about $15 billion to its list of assets. By any measure, the management of BC Hydro has been a colossal failure, incompetence made worse by chicanery and flawed policy objectives.
BC Liberals delivered $9 billion to IPPs
In the last five years, the delivery of cash to IPPs totaled $4.6 billion. If the established trend continues, the amount will be $8.3 billion in the next five years. Amounts flowing to IPPs and the necessary write-off of more than $6 billion in deferred costs means in the next five years, consumers will pay rates 60% higher than they’ve paid in the last five years. In addition, more than $10 billion dollars is committed to Site C and BC Hydro has been spending over $2 billion a year on capital expenditures. Without profitable new markets – none are anticipated – the 60% price rise for electricity could be 100% in the foreseeable future.
Duped by fossil fuel barons
The following excerpts are from a piece in DeSmog Blog. It is written by Martyn Brown, an articulate commentator on public affairs and, years ago, Premier Gordon Campbell’s Chief of Staff. The linked piece is the fourth of four parts about B.C.’s climate action plan. The entire series is worth the time of anyone seeking a more complete understanding of the intended and unintended directions of BC’s current energy policies. It is excellent work.
in-sights.ca 
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