BC Hydro sold less electricity to this province’s residential, commercial and industrial customers in 2018 than in 2005. The total of 50,472 gigawatt hours in 2018 was also a decline from 2017. Despite buying less in 2018 than in 2005, consumers paid BC Hydro 85% more, an extra $2.2 billion.
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In-Sights: Curious deal in BC’s pay-to-play economy
In early 2014, BC Hydro awarded SNC-Lavalin a contract to design, build, finance and maintain the John Hart Generating Station Replacement Project on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.
Continue readingIn-Sights: Site C, again
Site C did not proceed through ignorance and stupidity. It was a mean spirited and carefully designed choice to favour special economic and political interests above all others. Residential and small business ratepayers were viewed as powerless consumers who, with sufficient advertising and mistruths, could be convinced to believe Site
Continue readingIn-Sights: No business case for Site C
The BC Government has no business case for Site C. Unfortunately, they also don’t have the courage to terminate this expensive white elephant.
Continue readingIn-Sights: Spendthrifts at work
BC Hydro’s quarterly report for the period ended September 30, 2018 shows the utility is very good at some things. Specifically, borrowing and spending money. In the thirteen years from 2005, assets employed to service BC consumers have almost tripled in value. Trouble is, actual sales to residential, commercial and
Continue readingIn-Sights: BC Hydro needs restraints
Perhaps an even more vile set of falsehoods is BC Hydro’s continuing claims that demand for electricity by its BC consumers has been growing steadily. That has led to excessive capital spending that measures in the billions.
Continue readingIn-Sights: Private contractors dependent on public money
Paul Starr of Princeton University wrote The Limits of Privatization. In the paper, he discusses an effect in which influence on government now comes from the “enlarged class of private contractors and other providers dependent on public money.”
Continue readingIn-Sights: Disinformation campaign
John Horgan’s Government is condoning a disinformation campaign that would make despots of the world proud. And, we’re paying plenty for it. Corporate media is today publishing BC Hydro propaganda under the guise of it being authentic news. An example…
Continue readingIn-Sights: Still buying high, selling low
In the current year, BC Hydro expects to export electricity for a price of C$26,500 per megawatt hour. Compare that to the C$91,403/MWh paid independent power producers in the fiscal year ended March, 2018, an amount 28% higher than five years before. Bank of Canada puts inflation at 7% and
Continue readingIn-Sights: Opprobrium
The analysis by Richard McCandless would be headline material if corporate media were paying attention to the public interest. Burdens imposed on ratepayers measure in the billions and traditional journalists — including the ones who reported for years on far smaller sums lost to fast ferries — report almost no
Continue readingIn-Sights: Malfeasance and mismanagement
BC Hydro and the energy ministry employ many people paid salaries of hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. But, these people don’t work to save ratepayers’ money but to convince customers that the 80% rate increase between 2007 and and 2018 was appropriate and the huge increases still to
Continue readingIn-Sights: Die große Lüge
My writings in the past have decried BC Hydro directors and executives surrendering to corporate inertia. Inappropriate rigidity has led to failure in many badly run corporations and it now threatens our giant public utility. But, I now conclude that explanation is too generous to BC policy makers, past and
Continue readingIn-Sights: Meet the new boss? Nothing new here. Same old, same old boss…
Perhaps that “fantastically large broom” that BC Hydro’s boss Chris O’Riley carries around, will come in handy for these upcoming new NDP-BC Hydro reviews. It should come in handy for sweeping old — or new — problems under the rug.
Continue readingIn-Sights: Disaster warning
PRESS RELEASE PO Box 90, Moberly Lake, B.C., V0C 1X0 P: 250.788.3676 F: 250.788.2948 “Extremely High Probability” of Site C Delays Expert Report in Injunction Case Contradicts Public Assurances by Energy Minister […]
Continue readingIn-Sights: Power from the powerful
Politically connected individuals took advantage of citizens’ desire for clean, renewable energy and the Liberals wrote contracts with “lucky firms” that bore no relationship to market prices, guaranteed massive private profits and ensured all financial risks stayed with the public. The contracts in British Columbia last as long as sixty
Continue readingIn-Sights: BC Hydro: your primary role is NOT asset builder
We know Gordon Campbell crafted a story that people in BC should have enough domestic generation capacity to cover the most extreme shortage of water we could imagine. Like any unethical insurance salesman he consciously omitted telling the public what certainty of supply in a highly unlikely year would cost.
Continue readingIn-Sights: Government review of BC Hydro is specious
Some may be able to moderate use of electricity from the provincial grid but almost no individual can stop being a BC Hydro consumer. That fact obliges politicians to ensure the company is operated with maximum efficiency for the benefit of every citizen, not the relative handfull that are rewarded
Continue readingIn-Sights: Financial destruction of BC Hydro
Simple financial analysis demonstrates that management of BC Hydro during recent years was thoroughly incompetent. Largely, that is explained by policies and people imposed by BC Liberals on a utility that had served the public proficiently for more than four decades…
Continue readingIn-Sights: Masking BC Hydro’s financial condition
Under BC Liberals, BC Hydro stopped using regulatory accounts for rate smoothing and used them instead to hide the true state of the utility’s financial condition.
Continue readingIn-Sights: BC Hydro aims to mislead citizens about domestic consumption
If we had experienced more truthfulness from BC Hydro, the province would not be spending billions on Site C. Not only is the project an option more expensive than alternatives, domestic demand does not support the addition of any new sources of power beyond those involving upgrades of existing generating
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