B.C. Hydro's tentative plan to meet the province's rising energy demands over the next 20 years was showcased Tuesday in Prince George.
A small but continuous trickle of people passed through the open house, held at the Ramada downtown, where display boards had been set up to outline Hydro's draft integrated resource plan to meet demand forecast to be as much as 50 per cent higher by 2031.
Although the plan states conservation is the first and preferred strategy to meet future energy needs, the centrepiece remains construction of Site C, the proposed third dam and hydroelectric on the Peace River.
The $7.9-million project, which remains subject to environmental certification, would generate 5,100 gigawatt hours of electricity each year, about 35 per cent of the amount the W.A.C. Bennett Dam upriver produces, but with five per cent of the reservoir service area.
The project remains a source of contention, however, largely because of the amount of agricultural land that would be put underwater - about 100 hectares of top-class farmland and about 2,800 hectares of second and third tier agricultural land.
Prince George resident Doris Stymest was there to raise that concern and suggested a higher reliance on natural gas would be the better alternative to building Site C.
The fuel is cheap and readily available, she argued, and contended shipping it overseas is counterproductive to keeping it in B.C. for use by industrial and residential consumers.
"Canada does too much of this, we give it away," Stymest said. "It might cost us more in the beginning but why not use it?"
Hydro's resource planning director Randy Reimann said the government's emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas limits the utility's ability to move in that direction Stymest suggested carbon sequestration as an answer, but Reimann said it's expensive and unproven.
Finding ways to meet the demands that a growing list of liquified natural gas plants - effectively giant refrigerators that would supercool the gas for shipment overseas - will require remains a work in process.
The plan favours procuring so-called clean energy - windpower, run-of-river and biomass - by 2019-2020 backed up by gas-fire generation on the north coast only - effectively allowing LNG operators to use a portion of their own product to generate electricity for their plants.
The plan also calls for securing over the shorter 2016-18 timeframe some 2,000 gigawatt hours from clean energy.
Hydro expects a gap in meeting peak capacity between 2015 and 2020 and in answer it's proposing a combination of market purchases, acting on the Canadian entitlement under the Columbia River Treaty and firing up the Burrard Thermal natural gas station when needed.
Other proposed initiatives include adding a sixth turbine to the Revelstoke hydroelectric station and introducing pump storage, where electricity is used to pump water from a lower reservoir to an upper one for release during periods of high demand.
And the 500 kilovolt line between Prince George and Terrace would be upgraded to provide energy more efficiently. A second 500 kilovolt line would be added depending on how many LNG plants are constructed.
The entire plan, a discussion guide and an online feedback form can be found by going to www.bchydro.com and clicking on the "Energy in B.C." tab, then "Integrated Resource Plan" at the bottom of the page.
