British Columbia's IPP Supply (with updated map)

According to information released today from BC Hydro, as of April 1, 2011, BC Hydro has 68 electricity purchase agreements (EPAs) with independent power producers (IPPs) [ie, non-BC Hydro] whose projects are delivering power to BC Hydro. 

The projects are located all over British Columbia and generate 12,524 GWh annually of mostly clean electrictiy. This represents 3,183 MWs of capacity and comes from the following fuel sources:

  • non-storage hydro (run-of-river)
  • gas-fired thermal
  • biomass
  • storage hydro  (dams)
  • biogas
  • municipal solid waste
  • energy recovery generation
  • wind

Here is the IPP Supply Map (current to April 1, 2011) for project locations.

For more information on each of the projects, check out the IPP Supplier List  (current to April 1, 2011).

By way of background, BC Hydro supplies British Columbia with anywhere between 42,000 and 52,000 GWh of electricity annually and has a generating capacity of approximately 11,345 MWs from its various hydroelectric, gas-fired thermal and diesel generating facilities. 

By these numbers, IPPs provide approximately a quarter of British Columbia's electricity and add an additional five clean fuel technologies to the system.  But it's important to keep in mind that the IPP supply list includes such generating facilities as the Rio Tinto Alcan dam in Kitimat (896 MW), the Brilliant dams (120MW), the Arrow Lakes dam (185MW) and the Vancouver Island gas generation facility (275 MW), and not all IPPs on the list would properly be considered clean and renewable.

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Clean Power Call Yields Two Additional Project EPA's

BC Hydro announced today that it will award electricity purchase agreements to two additional projects under its Clean Power Call.  Here is the press release.  Two hydro projects are still under consideration (Box Canyon and Castle Mountain).

These projects are:

Long Lake Joint Venture (a JV between Regional Power Inc. and Summit Power Group) - a 31 MW storage hydro project in Stewart, BC. Here is the Terrace Standard's story on the project.

Pacific Greengen Power - a 45 MW run-of-river hydro project in Harrison Hot Springs, BC

These projects bring the total amount of electricity awarded under the Clean Power Call to 3,188 GWh/year of firm energy, considerably less than the 5,000 GWh/year BC Hydro had requested from developers under the 2008 Clean Power Call. 

Remember, the amount of electricity awarded to date is pre-attrition and BC Hydro is using a 30 percent attrition factor for the Clean Power Call. Under past calls for power, BC Hydro has seen attrition rates anywhere from 0 to 100%. So it remains to be seen which projects and how many ultimately will be built.

Out of general interest, here is a map of the current electricity supply to BC Hydro from independent power projects (as of April 1, 2010). The map does not include the projects awarded EPA's under the Clean Power Call.