FAQs for local governments

Our Integrated Resource Plan, which was recently approved by the B.C. Utilities Commission, lays out what load growth looks like and how we’ll supply it with clean electricity. It's designed to be flexible, preparing us for high and low load scenarios – from accelerated electrification to economic downturns.

While demand has been largely flat over the past 15 years as a result of declines in the forestry industry, traditionally one of the highest consumers of electricity in B.C., a lot has changed in the past couple of years. 

Today were seeing:

• Strong economic recovery following the pandemic;
• Significant population growth in the coming years;
• Industry ramping up;
• Changing technologies (electric vehicles, heat pumps); and,
• New legislation/policy from government at all levels.

And as a result, the demand for electricity is increasing. We're forecasting it could increase by 15 per cent or more by 2030. 

To meet the growing demand for electricity across B.C., we're adding our Site C Clean Energy Project in 2025, which will add 8% to our current supply and provide enough clean electricity to power half a million homes or 1.7 million electric vehicles per year.

We've also partnered with the Government of B.C. to launch a competitive Call for Power to acquire 3,000 gigawatt hours per year of clean and renewable electricity, like wind and solar. That's equivalent to powering 270,000 homes or adding 5% per year to our current supply.

New projects will begin generation as early as 2028, and the Call for Power will be the first in a series of calls in the coming years.

Other things we're doing to meet the growing electricity demand include accelerating or extending the timing of several of the existing near-term actions. These include actions on energy efficiency, demand response, industrial load curtailment, electricity purchase agreement renewals, and utility-scale batteries.

The Call for Power is one of the most important initiatives we currently have underway, and it's a key step to increasing electrification across the province.

Since announcing our intention to launch a call for power, we spent several months engaging with First Nations, independent power producers and stakeholders whose input shaped the design of the call for power we’ve now launched.

This is our first competitive call for power to acquire affordable, clean, and renewable electricity for British Columbians in more than 15 years. It will add about 3,000 gigawatt hours per year of electricity – the equivalent of about 5% of our current supply or enough to power 270,000 homes.

A key objective of the call is our commitment to exploring meaningful economic reconciliation opportunities and the requirement that all projects include First Nations ownership.

This is significant as it's the first time we have included this requirement, and projects wishing to bid into the call must have a minimum of 25% equity ownership held by one or more First Nations in whose territory the project is located (with evaluation-related credits to incentivize ownership to 51%).

We expect to award electricity purchase agreements by the end of 2024 and expect some projects to come online in fall 2028.

Every year, we create a Capital Plan that looks out 10 years. The plan quantifies the investments required to safely operate its system and meet the electricity demands of its customers.

Our 2024 10-Year Capital Plan contains $36 billion in community and regional infrastructure investments across B.C.

This new plan represents an increase of about 50% in investments over our previous capital plans, and reflects the province's growing demand for electricity over time from residential, commercial, transportation and industrial sectors.

The critical regional system investment programs and projects set out in our 10-Year Capital Plan will support electrification and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They will also address load growth and increased customer connections, and sustain and upgrade existing assets including B.C.'s valuable network of dams, transmission lines and substations.

These capital investments will provide many thousands of high-quality jobs for skilled workers, and generate economic growth for First Nations and communities all over the province.

Construction on our Site C Clean Energy Project began in 2015 and the project is almost complete. The first generating unit is expected to come into service in December 2024, we're on-track to have all six generating units in service in 2025.

We continue to manage the project within the budget that was approved in 2021 and our objective is to complete the project within the approved budget.

We're committed to making connection to our system easy for customers – especially those who are looking to use more clean electricity instead of fossil fuels.

Customer connection volumes have increased by over one-third in the last four years and we’re forecasting over 18,000 new residential accounts per year over the next 10 years.

Right now, we're taking steps to ensure the grid can handle the increased distribution loads related to electrification – whether it’s from electric vehicles, heating, cooling and more.

We also recently announced our 10-year Capital Plan, which includes more than $5 billion in grid investments to support new customer connections, particularly in high growth areas of the province.

These investments will support residential housing growth, residential electrification, transit electrification and industrial electrification.

To speed up customer connection times, we're also implementing a plan to invest in more resources and training new staff to support new customer connections.

Starting April 1, 2024 the residential electricity rate approved by the B.C. Utilities Commission for BC Hydro customers increased by 2.3%.

However, the B.C. Electricity Affordability Credit announced by government in February 2024 will more than offset this year's general rate increase, which is equivalent to about one-half of the credit. 

Almost all residential, commercial, and industrial customers will pay less this year than they did last year. The credit will vary based on an individual customer's annual electricity consumption. 

On average, residential households will see a total credit of about $100 over 12 months starting in April 2024. Commercial businesses and industrial customers will see a credit of 4.6% – or an average of $400 or $200,000, respectively – based on their consumption in the previous year, to help reduce rising operating costs.

On April 15, 2024, we began applying credits to eligible customers' accounts. Customers receive credits in monthly installments on each bill over the course of the year. These credits appear as line items on customer bill details after they’ve been applied. 

There's no need to apply for the credit. It will be applied automatically, and customers with more than one account will receive a credit on each account.

Our rates continue to remain among the lowest in North America, and we're committed to keeping any future rate increases below cumulative inflation.

Record drought in 2023 resulted in below average water levels at our largest reservoirs in the north and southeast of the province over the summer and fall. 

Currently our reservoir levels in the South Coast, Vancouver Island, Peace and Columbia regions have generally improved and are now near average levels for the time of year. In fact, levels at our two largest reservoirs are above where they were last year – Williston is over 12 feet higher, and Kinbasket is nearly 33 feet higher.  

While it's still too early to forecast how reservoir conditions across the province may change over the spring and summer, we’re forecasting the Williston and Kinbasket reservoir will be slightly below average into the fall due to this year’s low snowpack levels. These forecasts could change with the potential for increased precipitation over the spring, summer and fall or become more challenging if there’s an extended drought this summer.

We've experienced low water levels at our reservoirs in the past, and while this year is challenging, we're confident that we're taking all the right steps to ensure our customers have power when they need it. We'll continue to take active drought management steps, including conserving water by drawing on less impacted regions and importing more power – a common activity during low water years. 

Importing and exporting power helps manage our system, keep rates affordable for customers, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions in other jurisdictions in North America still reliant on coal or natural gas-fired electricity. 

In any given year, the balance between the amount of power available and the amount of power needed can result in a surplus or deficit of power for us. 

A key driver of electricity import and export activity is variations in precipitation and resulting inflows to our reservoirs. 

From 2019 to 2023, B.C. was a net exporter of electricity. And over the last 15 years, we were a net importer in seven of those years and a net exporter in the other eight. 2023 was an extraordinary year as a result of the historic drought – and we had net imports of about 11,000 gigawatt hours of electricity. 

While net imports represent higher than average years due to managing through drought conditions, 80% of the power generated is still coming from hydroelectric facilities across the province.

Climate change affects both the magnitude and the likelihood of significant weather events or patterns and underscores the benefits of our diverse and flexible hydroelectric system.

We're fortunate to have an integrated system across the province that allows us to diversify our storage and energy – meaning when it's dry in one region, we can ramp up operations in another. This puts us in the best possible position to respond.

While these conditions can be challenging, we're constantly adapting our methods to ensure the best possible response. We continue to take steps to improve weather and inflow forecasting, including:

• Looking at longer term (seasonal and annual) and near-term forecasts (next 14 days) when making planning decisions on reservoir management.
• Expanding our hydroclimate monitoring technology that helps improve near term and longer term forecasts. This includes custom-made solutions that have been designed in-house, as well as upgrading snow survey stations to automated, real-time snow and climate stations.
• For near term flood risk management, forecasting all coastal watersheds down to the hour, which improves the forecast accuracy for extreme events.
• Investing in capital projects – like spillway gate replacements – that will increase resiliency of the system to climate change.