Current rate design activities
There are a variety of ways you can participate in our rate design process. Check out the current activities below to see if you're interested.
Ongoing activities
We're exploring new optional residential service rates. These proposed rates are being designed to provide our residential customers with bill savings opportunities and rate options that may better meet their individual needs.
We're exploring new optional transmission service rates for our largest industrial customers, including time-varying rates and non-firm, market-based rates. These proposed rates are primarily being designed to provide customers with bill savings and capacity savings during the winter months when electricity demand is the highest.
We're exploring new optional small general service rates. These proposed rates are being designed to provide our small commercial customers with bill savings opportunities and rate options that may better meet their individual needs.
BC Hydro hosted a workshop in January 2025 to keep interested parties and transmission customers informed of potential market design changes and policies in Alberta that affect the commercial use and availability of the BC-Alberta intertie.
These initiatives affect BC Hydro’s transmission customers under BC Hydro’s Open Access Transmission Tariff (OATT), who use the BC-Alberta intertie. Actions taken by the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) may have impacts on our customers.
Recent submissions
With your input, we recently undertook rate design processes for the rates below and submitted them to our regulator, the B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC).
In February 2025, the BCUC approved our request to create a separate review proceeding for the self-generation (previously net metering) service rate and community generation service rate portion of the 2024 Rate Design Application.
This new process will include the excess generation price for self-generation rate customers and a proposed transition plan for customers who joined the self-generation program before July 23, 2024.
Here's a summary of the proposed changes:
Self-generation (net metering) service rates:
- Introduce a new self-generation rate that would allow customers to build a generating facility (e.g., rooftop solar) as large as needed to generate enough electricity to meet their own needs.
- Introduce a new community generation rate allowing multiple account holders to contribute to and benefit from community-based generation facilities collectively.
- For both the self-generation rate and the community generation rate, we're proposing to pay a per-kilowatt-hour price for excess generation customers send back to our grid. We're working with stakeholders and an independent consultant to consider how this price should be set. This work will inform the proposal that BC Hydro will submit to the BCUC in early 2025. This submission may also include a proposed transition plan for customers that joined the self-generation program before July 23, 2024.
Visit the BCUC's website to learn more and get involved with our 2025 Net Metering application.
On March 5, 2025, the BCUC approved our application to update our Distribution Extension Policy, which sets out how costs are allocated between customers for new or upgraded connections to our system.
The updates include:
- Reducing the requirement for customers to pay for improvements to our system, except in extraordinary circumstances.
- Increasing our contribution to cover the cost of a system extension to help reduce the cost to a customer.
- Updating our standard service connection and metering charges to reflect current processes and costs.
- Increasing the extension fee refund period and automating the refund process.
These changes are designed to help reduce the cost of connections for many customers.
Visit the BCUC's website to learn more about our distribution extension policy application.
On February 24, 2025, the BCUC approved our rate design application for updates to our residential service rates, non-integrated area rates, and the Electric Tariff Terms and Conditions.
Here's a summary of the proposed changes:
Residential rates:
- Introduce an additional optional rate that would have one price for electricity per kilowatt-hour (kWh) and no tiered threshold. We’d continue to offer the current tiered rate and optional tiered rate with time-of-day pricing.
- Reduce our current basic charge for multi-unit residential buildings receiving electricity service through one BC Hydro account. The basic charge is included on each residential and commercial customer bill and is used to partially recover the fixed customer-related costs of service, such as metering and billing.
Non-integrated area rates:
- Offer residential and commercial customers living in areas not connected to BC Hydro’s grid the same rate options we offer customers who are connected to our grid.
Electric Tariff updates:
- Various updates to our Electric Tariff Terms and Conditions to improve the customer experience and reflect current processes and costs.
Visit the BCUC's website to learn more about our 2024 rate design application.