Negative power prices
A Bloomberg headline too consequential to ignore: European Power Prices Plunge Below Zero as Solar Output Booms. Had British Columbia committed to wind and solar power eight years ago, it…
BC Hydro
Special interests dictated BC’s energy policy
For years, informed commentators without a partisan interest or a financial stake in construction of Site C argued for alternative energy projects. BC New Democrats and BC Hydro were disinterested…
Power alternatives
Public utility BC Hydro is now admitting that significant rate increases are coming because of Site C. Whatever happened to the “40 percent growth over 20 years” that BC Hydro…
Sweden has a public utility not stuck in the 1960s
I invite readers to look beyond a comparison of the noted energy projects to consider the long term objectives of two publicly owned energy companies. BC Hydro is focused on…
A cunning plan
Gaining billions of dollars, with a promise of $50 billion more, by selling an unneeded product to a single customer for a multiple of market value ought to earn IPPs…
Troubling information from recent public disclosures
BC’s Auditor General says the 2022 surplus would be $6.5 billion higher if government followed Canadian Public Sector Accounting Standards. The surplus would have been $8 billion had government also…
Screwed!
It may be too late to save the billions of dollars that will flow to private power producers because corrupt practices are not easily resolved in court. But it is…
Moronic public policy
The utility that for years could not estimate demand growth accurately and missed on the Site C cost estimate by 100% knew the future danger posed by rooftop solar panels…
Site C: stupidity or corruption?
In psychiatry, the word “delusion” means a firm belief in what others know to be false. Despite evidence of massive physical and financial risks, Liberals decided to green light Site…
BC Hydro and the illusory truth effect
Misinformation is common in our world. Sometimes it involves benign self-protection or ego boosting. Other times, humans use deception to gain advantages. Businesses and governments do it every day, by…
Bad governance, disinterested corporate media
Political observers who expected BC NDP to live up to electoral promises of 2017 are by now thoroughly disillusioned. Broken promises could pave the the grounds of the BC Legislature…
BC Hydro: privatize and regulate strictly
As managed since 2001 under Premiers Campbell, Clark and Horgan, BC Hydro has been an unqualified disaster. The company has used falsehoods to justify capital spending of about $40 billion…
Curiouser and curiouser
sh writer Lewis Carroll wrote those words for Alice in 1865. Carroll, born Charles Dodgson, was also a church deacon and an Oxford trained mathematician. Were he a 21st century…
Sunk costs sinking
BC government is reluctant to reveal information about BC Hydro’s Site C project but news that does emerge is useful to knowledgeable analysts…
Deceit and distraction
BC Hydro and government overseers have long claimed electricity demand is growing at a rate of 40% over 20 years. In fact, demand has not grown since 2005. What did…
A spendthrift public utility
There is much written here about BC Hydro and 17 years of flat demand for electricity by the utility’s residential, commercial and industrial customers. Despite that, in the first quarter…
Stuck in the 20th century
Climate science demands immediate reduction of greenhouse gases. Electricity can replace fossil fuels for many uses, but how that energy is generated and distributed is vitally important. As a monopoly…
Money for nothing…
IPPs). The utility paid $1,403,000,000 for that power, an average of $95,899 per gigawatt. Meanwhile, BC Hydro sold electricity on trade markets. It realized $42,520 per gigawatt on those sales,…
Inept or worse?
At the legislated deadline, and just before the last holiday weekend of summer 2021, BC Hydro released its financial results for the period April 2020 to March 2021. The utility’s…
Unchecked commercial fraud
Corporate media can’t be bothered to report what is happening at BC Hydro. Facts are readily available; they’re just not examined. The reason why was explained by the organization Fairness…