Reliance on ‘clean’ independent power producers means utility lacks ‘reserve capacity’ to meet emergencies and future demand, including switch to EVs
Climate Realists of B.C., December 4, 2024
Can BC Hydro provide the electrical energy required to achieve the “reduced emissions” goals set in the provincial government’s Clean Energy Act 2010? The British Columbia government believes it can, now that the Site C Hydro project is completed.
The Site C Hydro project is a large run-of-river hydro electric dam on the Peace River. It has a small reservoir and can provide 1,100 Megawatts (MW) of power and 5,100 Gigawatt hours/year (GWh/yr) of energy. However, since the reservoir is only about five per cent of the size of the Williston reservoir in north-central B.C., it has little “reserve capacity” to help produce energy in any future drought years that affect the Peace River basin.
Where are we now?
Between April 2023 and May 2024, BC Hydro had record electrical energy imports of 13,600 GWh, costing about $1.4 billion. This occurred after three consecutive years of droughts in northern B.C.
NERC, the North American Reliability Corporation, which is tasked with assuring the reliability and security of the North American power grid, rated the BC Hydro power grid region as having the third-highest risk of lacking enough reserve capacity to meet peak demand during extreme conditions. This means that 17 of the 20 North American power-grid regions have greater reserve capacity than BC Hydro! This was the first time BC Hydro had ever received a high-risk classification.
So what happened in 2023 and 2024?
In March 2024, BC Hydro’s Powerex subsidiary explained that the shortages occurred because, although many of the province’s hydroelectric facilities have large storage reservoirs, BC Hydro is also reliant on many smaller run-of-river facilities with small or medium-sized reservoirs.
“The region’s dependence on these [smaller] hydroelectric generation facilities,” Powerex wrote, “gives rise to a risk of fuel-supply insufficiency during weather events lasting multiple days, such as the January 2024 record power demand.” At the same time, “variable energy resources, such as wind and solar facilities” may also suffer reduced output. The result is a “fuel-supply risk.”
This risk can be met, Powerex added, through “hydro facilities with longer-term storage, as well as nuclear, gas, coal and geothermal resources.”
BC Hydro clearly understands the reliability problems with run-of-river hydro, wind power, and solar power. However, in its “Clean Energy” policies, the B.C Government does not seem to understand this problem.
How did we get into this situation?
To understand how we got into this situation, we need to look at the history of BC Hydro.
BC Hydro was created in 1961 when the B.C. Government passed the BC Hydro Act that established the utility as a Provincial Crown Corporation. Under the Act, BC Hydro could generate and distribute electricity, develop power projects, store water, purchase and sell power, expropriate and enter onto land, and borrow money. Its mandate was to provide reliable electricity to everyone in B.C. at the lowest possible cost and enable long-term economic development of the province.
The most important asset acquired by BC Hydro in 1962 was the BC Electric Company’s newly built gas-powered 950 MW Burrard Generating Station. It served as a power-reserve-capacity source for B.C.’s hydroelectric grid during low water years. However, it was decommissioned in 2016.
Between 1961 and 1980, BC Hydro completed six large hydro-electric generating projects. The first large dam was the W.A.C. Bennett Dam built on the Peace River near Hudson’s Hope in north-central B.C. This dam was built to create a very large storage reservoir that could survive droughts and still provide 2,730 MW of electric power to produce 13,810 GWh/yr of electricity.
When it was completed in 1968, the Bennett Dam was the largest earth-filled structure ever built in the world, and the dam’s Williston Lake reservoir is still the largest lake in British Columbia.
Starting in 1964, under the terms of the Columbia River Treaty with the United States, BC Hydro built a number of dams and hydro-electric generating stations, including large reservoirs at the Mica Dam and Revelstoke Dam on the Columbia River. From 1970 to 2000, BC Hydro exported its surplus power to Alberta and the U.S. In other words, BC Hydro had a large “reserve capacity” during this period and was one of the most reliable power grids in North America.
From 1970 to 2000, BC Hydro exported its surplus power to Alberta and the U.S. In other words, BC Hydro had a large “reserve capacity” during this period and was one of the most reliable power grids in North America.
In 2003, the B.C. Government took a major change in direction and decided that it wanted participation from private investors for future electrical generation and passed the “BC Hydro Public Power Legacy and Heritage Contract Act.” This act allowed Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to build small power projects, and sell power to BC Hydro. In 2013, BC Hydro had Electricity Purchase Agreements with 127 IPP’s representing a total 5,500 MW of power capacity and a total of 22,200 GWh/yr of energy production.
These IPPs consisted primarily of small run-of-river hydro projects mixed with a few wind farms, and solar farms. These projects provided intermittent power that depended on water runoff (for run-of river hydro), wind (for windmills), and cloud cover (for solar farms). They do not have “reserve capacity” like the BC Hydro dams with their large water reservoirs.
Impact of the Clean Energy Act on BC Hydro’s Future Power Projects
In the Clean Energy Act of 2010, the BC Government’s energy objectives were clearly stated as:
- To achieve electricity self-sufficiency in B.C.
- To reduce B.C. greenhouse gas emissions.
- To be a net exporter of electricity from clean or renewable resources.
- To achieve British Columbia’s energy objectives without the use of nuclear power.
- To prohibit the development of the 10 water basins previously identified by BC Hydro for future hydro power projects in the 1980’s.
However, there was no mention of reserve-capacity requirements for the BC Hydro grid. “Reserve capacity” is the backup energy-generation capacity that is used by the electric grid when electric power plants are shut down for maintenance, and/or, lack of fuel. For example, droughts (for hydro power plants), wind (for windmills), cloud cover (for solar farms), and shortage of natural gas for ( gas-fired plants).
For reliability, all electric power grids require adequate reserve capacity. Why was this important requirement not an objective of the B.C. Government?
After experiencing record BC Hydro energy imports in 2023 and anticipating the completion of the Site C Project in 2025, BC Hydro announced a call for power in April 2024, requesting bids for a total of 3,000 GWh/yr of clean electricity.
On Sept. 16, 2024, BC Hydro received 21 project proposals for a total of 9,000 GWh/yr of energy. The proposals included 15 wind farms, four solar farms, and one biomass project. These projects are expected to be in service within four years. A second call for power will occur in 2026, and every two years after, as required.
It’s worth noting that the More Creek IPP run-of-river project, with 75 MW capacity and 448 GWh/yr of energy, was rejected because it did not have the required minimum 20 per cent Indigenous ownership.
The troubling question is: Why is the B.C. Government not adding any projects that can provide “reserve capacity,” such as coal-fired, gas, geothermal, or nuclear plants?
The troubling question is: Why is the B.C. Government not adding any projects that can provide “reserve capacity,” such as coal-fired, gas, geothermal, or nuclear plants? This failure indicates that the B.C. Government is ignoring both NERC’s and Powerex’s “reserve-capacity” requirements. Meanwhile, the B.C. Government is still planning to increase the electrical load significantly by mandating EVs and heat pumps to achieve Net Zero by 2050.
What is the long-term outlook?
Since 2016, BC Hydro has:
- Decommissioned the 950 MW Burrard natural gas plant that provided reserve capacity.
- Added the 1,100 GW Site C run-of-river project.
- Planned to add another 9000 GW of green IPP’s.
Since BC Hydro has not planned to add generation that would improve reserve capacity, we can only expect reduced reliability of our power system in the future.
Yet B.C. needs more generation with reserve capacity or in the next decade we could become the most unreliable power grid in North America. The only practical solution is to add new natural-gas generation plants within the next five to 10 years, and nuclear plants for the long term.
Final Comment
Unfortunately, it appears that our current B.C. Government is following the path of the German government into electrical supply problems due to insufficient reserve capacity.
Germany is the world leader in developing wind and solar power, which makes up about 57 per cent of its total generation capacity. In 2011 the German Government started closing its nuclear plants and increased its generation of renewables and natural-gas plants to cover the loss of nuclear power. In 2019 the German Government started to close coal-fired plants. And in 2023, Germany closed the last three nuclear-power plants, which resulted in record energy imports of 70,000 GWh/yr.
On Nov. 22, 2024, the German Government tried to pass a bill costing 17 billion Euros to stabilize its electric power grid by building new natural-gas-fired plants and “green” hydrogen gas produced from solar farms. This plan is currently caught up in political disputes and is not expected to get resolved soon.
Unfortunately, our current B.C. government has become as unrealistic as the German government. At least we now have the Site C Hydro project, which can help us get by for a few more years while Germany struggles with a “hydrogen-gas technology” that is still in the very early stages of development and will have very significant safety, storage, and economic issues.
BC Conservative Party leader John Rustad has stated that he supports natural gas and nuclear power in the future. Perhaps we will, in the next few years, elect a new government that provides realistic plans for the future.
This article was written by a retired electrical engineering engineer.