Private, public power activists may get involved in a dirty fight
Business in Vancouver
June 24-30, 2008;
Krisendra Bisetty
BC is on the brink of entering a new era of energy generation with the largest “clean power” call ever issued in the province.
BC Hydro’s huge request for proposals, however, has also set the stage for what could be a dirty fight between activists for private and public power generation.
The utility is asking independent power producers to submit proposals that will target up to 5,000 gigawatt hours of clean or renewable energy each year from larger projects using proven technologies, such as hydro, wind, solar, and geothermal energy, among others.
That will be enough to power 500,000 homes.
The call has got B.C.’s burgeoning independent power generation industry all fired up, with major wind proponents already expressing interest to push forward massive projects.
Vancouver-based NaiKun Wind Energy Group Inc. (TSX-V:NKW) is proposing to build Canada’s first offshore wind project in Hecate Strait off the north coast of B.C.
The project, the company said, would produce enough energy to power 120,000 homes, nearly a quarter of the power required in Hydro’s call.
NaiKun’s newly-appointed president, Paul Taylor, the former boss of the Insurance Corp. of B.C., said its project had the capacity to deliver 320 megawatts of clean, renewable energy.
EarthFirst Canada Inc. (TSX:EF), under the direction of new president and CEO Linda Chambers, will enter two fully permitted wind projects into the call, just as it completes construction of its 144 megawatt Dokie I wind energy project in the Peace River region of northeast B.C. EarthFirst already has a Hydro agreement for that project.
A flood of new run-of-the-river power generation projects are also expected, pitting developers and renewable energy supporters against activists alarmed at what they perceive as the privatization of Hydro, a Crown corporation.
“What we do object to is the privatization of our public utility,” said Melissa Davis, executive director of BC Citizens for Public Power, an advocacy organization fighting to keep the power generation system remain in public hands.
“One of the questions that arise for me is, ‘why the biggest barrier to our own crown corporation is its own provincial government.’ That raises some very, very serious concerns.”
The group held a series of “Power to the People” events across B.C. in recent weeks and had planned to a hold a big conference of activists in Vancouver June 20 and 21. That has now been postponed to October, with speakers including Marvin Shaffer, an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University and a critic of B.C.’s 2007 energy plan.
Davis said supporters of the group, which was formed in response to a public outcry over the outsourcing of BC Hydro’s administrative functions to management consulting company, Accenture Ltd. a few years ago, were “horrified” over what she described as “incremental privatization” during the past few years.
“What we are opposed to are private companies profiting off of the natural resources of British Columbia and the essential bankrupting of our crown corporation by our own provincial government,” said Davis.
“The thing is the BC Hydro has been a very profitable crown corporation. If it had been a disastrous crown corporation the same questions wouldn’t be raised.”
Davis claimed there are more than 600 active applications and licenses for run-of-river projects and cited an independent engineers report prepared for Hydro as having outlined over 8,200 sites for private power projects.” •
kbisetty@telus.net
