IPP Power Plants Costing BC Ratepayers Billions / Liberal Party Cronyism!

[JM_]

If you're wondering why Weaver is silent, its because he supported the IPP projects:

 

Renewable energy contracts slammed by NDP

British Columbians paying $16 billion for power it doesn’t need: report

By Nelson Bennett | February 14, 2019, 10:30am 

 

 

The Meikle wind farm is one of five large wind farms in BC developed, along with run-of-river projects, under the Gordon Campbell Liberals' clean energy plan.

Making B.C. a climate change leader is costing the average British Columbian $200 a year more than he or she would be paying if Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government had not aggressively pushed for renewable energy adoption.

That is one way of reading a report released by Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Michelle Mungall last night, February 14.

Mungall herself reads the report as proof that Gordon Campbell’s development of a clean power industry is a “booddoggle” that committed BC Hydro to buy $16 billion worth of power that it didn’t need from independent power producers (IPPs).

"This is a 16 billion dollar boondoggle with profits going to friends of the BC Liberals,” Mungall said in a press release.

“It's outrageous that these deals are costing B.C. families, including seniors on fixed incomes, $200 a year. Yet again, the BC Liberals gave billions to their rich friends and stuck British Columbians with the bill. People will be paying for that choice on every Hydro bill they get for the next two decades."

The report, Zapped, by Ken Davidson, was commissioned by Mungall as part of her ministry’s review of BC Hydro.

It says BC Hydro is locked into buying $16 billion worth of electricity from private power producers that it doesn’t need.

But there are other ways the report can be interpreted, depending on one’s politics and one’s view on energy.

On one hand, the report confirms what critics of private power have been saying for years: firm power from large-scale hydro is more valuable than intermittent power, and BC should never have signed up for long-term power purchase agreements with private power producers.

“Simply put, the value of a generator at a storage dam is marginally more than the value of a generator at a run-of-river project,” Davidson writes in his report. “With run-of-river, it is necessary to accept the power as it is generated and to sell it into the market prevailing at the moment.”

Marvin Shaffer, an adjunct professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of BC, says the report confirms what has said for years: The Gordon Campbell Liberals forced BC Hydro to pay too much for renewable power.

“And now, as a consequence, these unnecessary and uneconomic purchases are driving the need for increased rates,” he wrote in a blog in 2016.

Blair King, who blogs about energy issues and has been critical of Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver on a number of issues, found himself sharing some common ground with Weaver in defending the Gordon Campbell policies on climate change, which included investments in renewable energy – primarily run-of-river and wind power.

“These policy decisions were the provincial government putting their money where their mouth was when it came to fighting climate change and represents a sign of exactly what we should expect as we continue our fight against climate change,” King writes in his blog, A Chemist in Langley.

“To put it bluntly BC Hydro, in 2019, is suffering because they are ahead of the curve and got locked into intermittent renewables which is exactly what the environmental activists say we should be doing country-wide.”

Weaver also generally defended the Campbell government’s policies. Those policies required BC Hydro to issue clean power calls and agree to 20-year purchase agreements with independent power producers.

Those developers financed run-of-river and wind projects in return for long-term contracts – contracts that locked BC Hydro into paying steep prices for power over 20 years.

“I would agree that some of the contracts seem to be rather high,” Weaver said. “However, let’s go and ask what was the rationale at the time for it.”

Weaver said the Gordon Campbell government, as part of its climate change action policies, wanted to create a renewable energy industry by requiring BC Hydro to enter long-term power purchase agreements to renewable power developers.

“This was designed to kickstart this industry and it did just that, very effectively,” Weaver said.

“What we have to be very careful of, moving forward, is that we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Because right now the clean energy industry in British Columbia has basically collapsed because of government’s focus on Site C.”

Davidson’s report points out the inherent weakness with intermittent power, and the inherent value of firm power from large-scale hydro. The challenge with intermittent power isn’t exclusive to B.C. Other jurisdictions have found that there are costs associated with renewable power’s intermittency.

Intermittent sources like wind and run-of-river often produce surpluses of power  when it’s not needed. If it is sold, it sometimes has to be sold at a steep discount. Davidson provides an example of how this works against BC Hydro.

He cites an example of 150 megawatts hours (MWh) of power generated by wind or run-of-river, 100 MWh of which can be “stored” by BC Hydro by cutting back on hydro power production. (Basically, it can simply store water and stop producing power at its dams.)

But if it has to sell 50 MWh of surplus power, it might get $5 MWh market value for that power, but still have to pay IPPs $100 MWh, because it is locked into those prices on a take-or-pay basis.

Had the Liberal government not handcuffed Powerex, BC Hydro’s power trading business, the discount might not be so bad.

Powerex traditionally made good profits buying power when it was cheap on the power market, and selling B.C.’s dispatchable hydro power at higher prices.

But as part of its energy policy changes, the Liberal government required that B.C. become energy self-sufficient, and also restricted the use of the Burrard thermal power plant.

That restricted Powerex’s ability to capitalize on both hydro and renewable energy resources.

Had Powerex not been restricted to a self-sufficiency policy, it might have had more flexibility to sell surplus power when it could get higher prices, and import power at lower prices.

Asked if he thought restricting Powerex in that way was a mistake, Weaver said: “Absolutely it was a mistake.”

Jae Mather, executive director for Clean Energy BC, which represents IPPs, said Davidson’s calculations on the value of the power from IPPS is flawed because it is based on a mechanism that no one in the power industry uses.

He agrees that the amount of power BC Hydro ended up buying from IPPs was excess to B.C.’s needs, but says everyone thought the predictions for B.C.’s power needs were higher than what they turned out to be.

“The reality is back then that’s what everybody thought the power demands were going to be,” Mather said. “Everybody. Not one sector – all sectors.”

As for Powerex and the requirement for self-sufficiency, Mather said liberalizing Powerex’s ability to buy power from other jurisdictions when it is cheap and sell high would run up against B.C.'s climate change policies, which requires that close to 100% of B.C. power come from clean, renewable sources.

“The reality is we would also blow our ability to ever meet our own climate targets because we’d be importing vast amounts of more fossil energy into our grid,” Mather said.

nbennett@biv.com

@nbennett_biv

 

https://biv.com/article/2019/02/renewable-energy-contracts-slammed-ndp

[Warhippy]

24 minutes ago, Jimmy McGill said:

thats the NDP report spin, many people are challenging that. 

 

There's a lot of NDP spin going on right now, thats worth keeping in mind. Ken Davidson is as orange as they come, he's not "independent." It doesn't mean he hasn't raised any valid points, but the criticisms of the report are worth reading, particularly people in the green energy sector. 

You really just cannot admit that the Libs gamed the system harder than the NDP ever did can you?

[JM_]

Just now, Warhippy said:

You really just cannot admit that the Libs gamed the system harder than the NDP ever did can you?

wtf? you can't even admit that maybe there's some spin and more than one perspective? 

[Warhippy]

2 minutes ago, Jimmy McGill said:

wtf? you can't even admit that maybe there's some spin and more than one perspective? 

I'm not delving in to that because the facts are simple regardless of the spin.  The facts are we will pay more because of it.

 

But you cannot seem to once admit that the Libs really screwed up, a lot of it is coming to light but every single time one of their new foibles pops up you post an article that is more of a "well we don't know the facts yet" or "this is ndp spin and remember the 90s" from beat writers or opinion columnists.

 

We will pay more.  But the Libs absolutely screwed this province over.  No article in response will change that

[JM_]

Just now, Warhippy said:

I'm not delving in to that because the facts are simple regardless of the spin.  The facts are we will pay more because of it.

 

But you cannot seem to once admit that the Libs really screwed up, a lot of it is coming to light but every single time one of their new foibles pops up you post an article that is more of a "well we don't know the facts yet" or "this is ndp spin and remember the 90s" from beat writers or opinion columnists.

 

We will pay more.  But the Libs absolutely screwed this province over.  No article in response will change that

I'm calling horse sh!t on you today Hip, you know thats not true. 

 

How about reading the articles I posted? people int he green power industry have some good points in there. 

[Warhippy]

Just now, Jimmy McGill said:

I'm calling horse sh!t on you today Hip, you know thats not true. 

 

How about reading the articles I posted? people int he green power industry have some good points in there. 

I have, I did.  You do.  That's not horseshoe!t at all.

 

Strome can't say Notley has done anything good

Forsberg cannot say that the UCP or PC in Alberta are bad

I cannot seem to say anything bad about Horgan

 

We all do it, it's fine.  Whether we want to admit it or not we all have a bias that won't let us down from our sled of choice as it was

 

I am actually finding this power aspect amusing myself.  Horgan HAS to hammer this, hard.  Weaver cannot say a damned thing against it because if he does he's a hypocrite.  Benning has to defend it but he cannot because there was very clear promises made to the people of BC about hydro prices that were then and now so laughably flimsy that only the most hardcore supporter would buy it.

 

We're over producing power we don't need, charging the people of BC a fortune for it and selling the rest to the owners of these contracts for less than "market value" and the only party that can outright slam it needs the support of the one man who cannot speak out about it.

 

It's beautiful really when you think about it for how sad the power play in BC is

[JM_]

1 hour ago, Warhippy said:

I have, I did.  You do.  That's not horseshoe!t at all.

 

Strome can't say Notley has done anything good

Forsberg cannot say that the UCP or PC in Alberta are bad

I cannot seem to say anything bad about Horgan

 

We all do it, it's fine.  Whether we want to admit it or not we all have a bias that won't let us down from our sled of choice as it was

 

I am actually finding this power aspect amusing myself.  Horgan HAS to hammer this, hard.  Weaver cannot say a damned thing against it because if he does he's a hypocrite.  Benning has to defend it but he cannot because there was very clear promises made to the people of BC about hydro prices that were then and now so laughably flimsy that only the most hardcore supporter would buy it.

 

We're over producing power we don't need, charging the people of BC a fortune for it and selling the rest to the owners of these contracts for less than "market value" and the only party that can outright slam it needs the support of the one man who cannot speak out about it.

 

It's beautiful really when you think about it for how sad the power play in BC is

 yeah OK man. I've called out many things about the Lib's in the past, but you keep doing you, pissy and personal when you don't like a post. 

 

[Warhippy]

2 hours ago, Jimmy McGill said:

 yeah OK man. I've called out many things about the Lib's in the past, but you keep doing you, pissy and personal when you don't like a post. 

 

I'm not pissy at all.  I'm finding this amusing actually.  The whole power debacle is just beyond amusing on all counts

[Ryan Strome]

8 hours ago, Warhippy said:

I have, I did.  You do.  That's not horseshoe!t at all.

 

Strome can't say Notley has done anything good

Forsberg cannot say that the UCP or PC in Alberta are bad

I cannot seem to say anything bad about Horgan

 

We all do it, it's fine.  Whether we want to admit it or not we all have a bias that won't let us down from our sled of choice as it was

 

I am actually finding this power aspect amusing myself.  Horgan HAS to hammer this, hard.  Weaver cannot say a damned thing against it because if he does he's a hypocrite.  Benning has to defend it but he cannot because there was very clear promises made to the people of BC about hydro prices that were then and now so laughably flimsy that only the most hardcore supporter would buy it.

 

We're over producing power we don't need, charging the people of BC a fortune for it and selling the rest to the owners of these contracts for less than "market value" and the only party that can outright slam it needs the support of the one man who cannot speak out about it.

 

It's beautiful really when you think about it for how sad the power play in BC is

This is complete BS. I said she did good when she cut off wine from BC and threatened to cut off BC from Alberta oil. 

[Warhippy]

1 minute ago, Ryan Strome said:

This is complete BS. I said she did good when she cut off wine from BC and threatened to cut off BC from Alberta oil. 

Oh come on man.

 

We ALL stand by our chosen ponies to a fault.

 

I'm just glad this won't be my issue for much longer

[Ryan Strome]

Just now, Warhippy said:

Oh come on man.

 

We ALL stand by our chosen ponies to a fault.

 

I'm just glad this won't be my issue for much longer

Sarcasm, hip.

[kingofsurrey]

 

[Ryan Strome]

13 hours ago, kingofsurrey said:

 

@Jimmy McGill posted an interesting article, where do you stand on this?

[Warhippy]

14 hours ago, Ryan Strome said:

Sarcasm, hip.

I know 

[JM_]

1 hour ago, Ryan Strome said:

@Jimmy McGill posted an interesting article, where do you stand on this?

I thought that the 2 articles talking about IPPs and the Green Party and green power industry side gave some interesting views that weren't the typical NDP-Liberal fighting. But I can understand why some people wouldn't want to look at the nuances, which there are.

 

Its interesting to see the comments that at the time, the pro-green folks and Premier Gropey's gov't understood the costs would be higher than gas plants, but the green initiatives were worth the extra costs. So thats an interesting question to me, is going renewable worth the extra $200? 

 

Its also interesting to look at the costs - who's right? the NDP report or the industry people that say their estimates are incorrect and use the wrong cost for power?