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Revenue requirements

How BC Hydro is regulated

BC Hydro is regulated by the B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC). Under the Utilities Commission Act, the BCUC is responsible for ensuring that:

  • Customers receive safe, reliable and non-discriminatory energy services at fair rates from the utilities it regulates.
  • Shareholders of these utilities are afforded a reasonable opportunity to earn a fair return on their invested capital.
  • Competitive interests of B.C. businesses are not frustrated.

As part of its regulation by the BCUC, BC Hydro files periodic Revenue Requirements Applications seeking various approvals.

What's a Revenue Requirements Application?

An application includes various approvals sought by BC Hydro from the BCUC. In addition to a request for approval of rates, a Revenue Requirements Application may also include, but is not limited to:

  • Revisions to or requests for new regulatory accounts
  • The setting of depreciation rates
  • Approval of expenditure schedules such as for Demand Side Management expenditures, which include investments in customer conservation programs.

F2023-F2025 Revenue Requirements Application

In September 2021 BC Hydro filed a three-year Revenue Requirements Application for Fiscal 2023-2025 with the BCUC, requesting an annual average bill increase of 1.1% for the next three years

Full documentation of the F2023-F2025 Revenue Requirements Application at bcuc.com

Factors and considerations in Revenue Requirements Applications

Revenue Requirements Applications must take into consideration a variety of factors, including:

  • Long-term forecasting that indicates B.C.’s growing population and a shift to electrification – switching from fossil fuel power to electricity – will require significantly more electricity over the next two decades.
  • Acquisition of additional clean energy to ensure we continue to meet the growing demand for electricity, as well as the sales of excess energy.
  • Ongoing operating costs.
  • System resilience against threats including more extreme weather caused by climate change, and cyberattacks.
  • Reinvestment in our existing hydroelectric power stations and other electricity generating assets, most of which were built in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
  • Investment in new power generation, including the Site C Clean Energy Project, a third dam and hydroelectric power station on the Peace River.

Earlier Revenue Requirements Applications