Blair Lekstrom, the new minister of energy, mines and petroleum resources, told delegates at a B.C. Power conference this week that President Obama's push for green energy would open up opportunities in British Columbia.
"Anytime that you have markets that are looking for a product that you can develop, I think that is a good thing."
He made the statements Tuesday before a group of delegates from the renewable-energy sector.
One of the sector's biggest players – Donald McInnes, CEO of Plutonic Power – indicated it was time to create clearer policy directives around export. Currently, BC Hydro's policy is a goal of energy self-sufficiency, with the potential to export electricity the province doesn't need.
"You'd have to be in a coma to not see where the B.C. government is going," McInnes said. "Now, we need consistency of policy and certainty of timelines.
"An export plan is an obvious place for us to go."
Late last year, BC Hydro scaled back its 2008 call for clean power -- a move that frustrated some power developers.
At the conference, Steve Davis, president of the Independent Power Producers Association of B.C. said simply: "We'd rather things go up than down." He pointed out that BC Hydro's current load forecast does not include things like fuel switching -- big industries moving from gas to electricity -- and the addition of plug-in electric vehicles to the grid.
McInnes said the appointment of David Emerson -- who has served as minister of industry and of international trade -- as executive director of the BC Transmission Corporation is a sign that the province is already building for an export policy.
The Tyee requested a response from Minister Lekstrom on the question of whether his ministry was currently working on an energy export plan or if it intended to do so in the future.
Jake Jacobs, the ministry's public affairs officer, responded with an email stating:
"As we move to electricity self-sufficiency. . . where there is a benefit for British Columbians, we will also look at the potential to export clean, renewable power to neighbouring jurisdictions to displace more carbon-intensive power generation."
Colleen Kimmett writes on environmental and sustainability issues for The Tyee.
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lynn
3 years ago
Priceless
This has always been the unsaid end game of the run-of-river IPP's...and what a rosy picture they paint.
What is conveniently forgotten is that under NAFTA's Chapter 11 compensation provision, the investor rights of private sector American firms... ( and General Electric is investing Big-Time in Plutonic)....their investor rights trump any conflicting provincial legislation.... and trump our rights as Canadians as well.
Our sovereignty... and potentially our right to our own water will be dangerously jeopardized.
We would be fools to proceed with this.... especially when it comes to an irreplaceable human survival source like water.
North of Hope
3 years ago
Clean energy?
I believe it is a mistake to call these projects "clean." They dam rivers and impair the water flow and fish movement. The local ecosystem is destroyed.
NicS
3 years ago
NAFTA Not Favoured By Obama
Give the world's economy (in particular the USA's) a little more time and when it implodes Global Trade may well be a dying idea that someone once had. Obama and the US is already talking protectionism, which will allow the Canadians and Mexicans to break any trade agreements, in particular if the US breaks them first.
In my view the irony of it all is that all the hard fought battles of The Council Of Canadians, various left leaning groups, etc. may have had minimal effect in ending NAFTA. We are however better educated thanks to all their efforts in opposing NAFTA and the type of free trade our own gov't has been trying to set up for their friends in the corporate world.
Fiat lux
3 years ago
What all this power is
What all this power is needed for is to forcibly urbanize more and more people into mega cities that require incredible energy inputs per capita...
....and to lay off more and more of 1/2 hp. human labour and replace it with 25 or 100 hp. of electric, or oil energy...
....and then call this stupid racket " cost cutting and efficient".
But then, we're talking about the braindead pseudo priesthood of economists who are writing the scriptural justifications for this crime wave that destroys Earth and humanity.
Emerson has PhD in this garbage faith at the intellectual level of the Rosenberg religion.
Ed Deak.
Gordon_Ramble
3 years ago
I'm not sold on these Run of the River projects
I'm not sold on these Run of the River projects ... surely Solar Power Farms in the Okanogan and the TNRD, as well as Wind Farms in strategic windy locations throughout BC would be much easier on the environment.