Stories & features

New updates to our studies and incentives

We've helped many of our industrial and large commercial customers to electrify their facilities with our energy audits, feasibility studies, custom project incentives, and our strategic energy management (SEM) program.

Along the way, we've uncovered all kinds of electrification opportunities. However, there's a limit to the amount of power your facility's infrastructure can handle. And there's also a limit to the amount of power that the BC Hydro infrastructure serving your facility can provide.

So how do you electrify your facility efficiently and strategically? Where do your smartest opportunities lie? And how do you identify them?

We recently revised two of our most popular programs – feasibility studies and custom project incentives – to address this. And we asked Shantanav Bhowmick, a conservation and energy management program manager with BC Hydro, to tell us all about them.

1. Integrated feasibility study

"BC Hydro used to have separate studies for different end uses. There were feasibility studies for energy efficiency, low carbon electrification, new construction and pilot projects – there used to be about five or six different ones," says Shantanav. "But now we've brought them all together into one feasibility study that opens up more integrated opportunities."

"For example, in the past, if you were considering replacing your gas-based boilers with electric heating, then an electric boiler may have seemed like the obvious solution. But because our new consolidated study offers more visibility into the broader range of options available, then you might consider a more efficient electrification solution, such as a heat pump."

Feasibility studies are conducted by an energy expert who provides options for capitalizing on energy management opportunities and the implementation costs that they involve.

You might even be able to get your study fully funded depending on the opportunities it uncovers. Studies for industrial customers can involve energy efficiency, demand response and electrification opportunities. However, if you're a large commercial customer, you'll need to apply for CleanBC study funding specifically for electrification opportunities.

Here's how the our study offer works:

2. Integrated custom project incentives

Whether your project is the result of a feasibility study, or a simple equipment upgrade or replacement, our custom project incentives can help to bring down project costs.

"We're seeing more and more projects where one end use is related to another end use," says Shantanav. "For example, a lot of customers are exploring solar power, which is part of energy efficiency. But if their facility doesn't run at night or during the weekend, then what happens to the solar energy produced on those days? Those customers could use batteries for energy storage – which are part of demand response. So just like feasibility studies, we have consolidated everything under the umbrella of custom project incentives to allow for these integrated type projects, as in projects involving multiple end uses."

Feasibility studies and custom project incentives provide funding for the same types of energy management opportunities:

Looking for savings in your facility?

Whether you've made many upgrades over the years or are considering it for the first time, take a fresh look at our integrated feasibility study and custom project incentives to see how we can help you to increase electrification in your facility as efficiently as possible.

You can find information on our website for feasibility studies and custom project incentives. Alternatively, contact your Key Account Manager or Regional Energy Manager, or call 604 522 4713 in the Lower Mainland or 1 866 522 4713 elsewhere in B.C.