When the B.C. Public Utilities Commission (PUC) shot down the Campbell government's vaunted green energy plan last week, the controversial independent power projects (IPPs) took a withering broadside.
The Commission, an independent regulator that oversees B.C. Hydro, took 224 pages to make its case in a densely technical report. But at the document's core is some dead-simple arithmetic that any schoolboy could understand.
Under orders from the Liberal government, BC Hydro has contracted to buy more than $30 billion worth of electricity from IPPs at prices averaging about $100 a megawatt hour. Coming, as it will, mostly in the spring when Hydro's reservoirs are full, this huge power increment will have to be sold to the U.S. for $30 to $50 per megawatt hour. In short, Hydro, i.e. the people of B.C., are on the hook for at least $15 billion.
A loss of this magnitude will, of course, bankrupt BC Hydro, which is exactly what right-wing ideologues in the Campbell government intend. They have always resented Hydro's success - marked by secure supply and the cheapest electricity in North America - as a socialist affront.
The PUC has told Hydro - in effect, the government - to come back in a year with a revised energy plan, one based on the reality that the province does not face an energy shortage. The government, of course, has been pushing the opposite line, crying up the need for IPPs to head off a crisis, while - surprise! surprise! - creating an economic opportunity for friends in the private sector who have contributed heavily to the Liberal Party.
A defiant Energy Minister, Blair Lekstrom, has declared that the IPP program will continue as planned. This would require interfering with an independent regulator, dangerous ground for any government.
Michael Poole
Halfmoon Bay
