EFI Leader Barry Penner sees risks for our future supply of electricity
Barry Penner, former BC cabinet minister and chair of our Energy Futures Institute, looks back at its startup in 2023 — and at the key energy issues it has identified and spoken out on since then. Among them, how is BC going to meet growing demand for electrical power?
It was an extremely hot couple of days in Boise, Idaho, in 2023, and I was attending the annual summit of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region. Stewart Muir from Resource Works was also attending.
There was a presentation being given by representatives of the BC government extolling the virtues of their CleanBC climate plan, which was premised on British Columbia having an abundance of clean, renewable electricity, such that electric vehicles were going to be mandated, and within a reasonable number of years, we would no longer have internal combustion engines on the road.
Furthermore, natural gas would not be needed for home or commercial heating anymore, because we would be switching to electricity in the pursuit of lower greenhouse gas emissions.
It had been some time since I'd taken a close look at our electricity supply situation in British Columbia. It was something I used to pay close attention to when I was a member of the legislature and Minister of Environment and involved in various climate change initiatives.
I thought, I just don't think what I'm hearing is realistic. I thought we were still probably self-sufficient, but I just didn't think we had this huge endowment of additional surplus electricity to go around.
I guess I must have been frowning because Stewart Muir approached me. I said, “I don't think the numbers add up.” And he said, “I'm wondering about it too. Maybe we should have a conversation afterwards.” So we did.
That conversation really started again in September. Stewart asked me if I'd taken a close look at the province’s CleanBC plan, and I said I had just before meeting him. It was the first time I had really looked at the document.
And I said: “Stewart, it's based on a fundamentally flawed premise. It's right there—that we have this abundance of electricity. Everything kind of flows from that underlying concept that we just have more electricity than we know what to do with, and therefore we can reduce our emissions everywhere else by switching over.”
So fast-forward to December 2023, and on December 4th, we launched the Energy Futures Institute.
It really just entailed digging into our real energy situation, comparing that to the BC government’s premise, and then trying to make sense of various government policies and priorities—based on what the reality is, not what the hope is, but what the actual situation is.
And then we tried to bring that to public attention because there hadn't been much material other than these bromides from government news releases saying everything was wonderful.
There are lots of environmental groups saying, “Here's what we want the future to be. This is our ideal world. This is how we're dreaming.”
That future might look very aspirational and well-intentioned, but what is the actual situation? There was a dearth of factual information available. And so that's what we've been working on ever since.
BC Hydro has a big communications department with a budget that most organizations could only dream of. And they've done a very good job for decades positioning themselves as a corporation that will look after you: “Don't worry. We've got you covered, and everything's fine.”
But, lo and behold, as I started looking into things in the fall of 2023, I came across information—not from the government and not from BC Hydro, but from Statistics Canada—saying that, in fact, BC Hydro was a net importer of electricity.
And that was the premise of our first Energy Futures news conference, breaking that news.
And it does beg the question: Why? Why is there so little awareness of what's happening within our own province? It’s because, I guess, governments don't necessarily want you to know, because people might start asking some tough questions.
For two years, we’ve imported an amount of electricity roughly equivalent to the output of two Site C dams, mostly from south of the border, where 60 percent of their electricity generation comes from natural gas or coal-fired power plants.
We’re importing electricity from the States, but independent organizations are pointing out that the Pacific Northwest in the United States, and in fact all utilities in the U.S.—but specifically in the Northwest—are facing their own supply-and-demand challenges for power.
It all leads to a risk that there won't be adequate supplies of electricity when it's most badly needed in the U.S. So for BC to think that we will always be able to turn to the U.S. to bail us out in the event of our own shortages compounds the problem.
And now we see another problem: There’s a self-created pinch, led by President Donald Trump, and then you have Canadian politicians, including the Premier of Ontario and the Premier of BC, threatening to curtail electricity sales in retaliation.
And all of a sudden, you're in a scenario where maybe that two-way trade of electricity can't be relied upon, and right now we're dependent on it to keep our lights on.
One-fifth of our electrons—our power—in BC for the last two years have come from outside the province. So for us to be threatening to cut off electricity is a little bit like pointing a gun to your own head and saying, “Take another step, and I'll pull the trigger.”
There is a risk in relying on your neighbour to bail you out. So let's do more to make ourselves self-sufficient.
Let’s do more within our own boundaries to achieve that, and you can do it in two ways: You can generate more, and you can reduce demand.
The BC government has announced some initiatives to get more intermittent renewables online, but those will take years to build.
You can talk about reducing demand, but the CleanBC policy has the government saying we're going to prohibit the use of natural gas for home and commercial heating, and we're going to force the use of electric vehicles through the weight of law and through $20,000 fines per non-compliant vehicle.
So the government is intentionally pushing up electricity demand at the very time we have a shortage.
I believe there are still, from an engineering perspective, opportunities to build more hydroelectric dams in British Columbia.
But, legally, BC government legislation states that after the Site C dam, no more large-scale dams will be built on rivers in British Columbia.
Now, what the legislature passes, the legislature can usually repeal if there is political will. But building dams is a daunting task due to environmental concerns, First Nations interests, and cost, so I don't expect that to be the go-to option.
In the near to medium term, the government's been turning to intermittent renewables, primarily wind power. That has some benefits, but it lacks the attributes of large-scale hydro, where you have storage and can dispatch electricity on demand.
You can't dispatch wind or solar power—Mother Nature determines when that happens.
The government did issue a call for power proposals. Hopefully, those will be built in a reasonable timeframe. My understanding is that the power purchase agreements require them to be in service by October 1st, 2032—7½ years from now.
In the past, there’s always been some attrition—not every project that has a contract gets built. Costs change, numbers don’t add up, or unexpected issues arise. So we'll see how many of the announced projects actually come to fruition.
But I think there needs to be a dose of reality regarding power demand and supply, combined with more transparency. What is our real energy situation in BC? What’s feasible? Maybe some sober second thought is required.
In the last election, the Conservative Party said they would favour looking into nuclear power.
Of course, you can look into it. Sure, it's an option, especially if you want firm baseload power and something that doesn’t emit carbon dioxide.
So nuclear seems like an obvious option. But currently, in British Columbia, it's against the law—just as it is to build another major dam after Site C.
It takes time and money. Small modular nuclear reactors are much smaller than traditional nuclear plants, but economies of scale work against them. So the cost per unit of electricity might actually be higher.
And to close, this from Margareta Dovgal, Managing Director of Resource Works: “We are incredibly privileged to have a mind of Barry’s calibre leading the Energy Futures Institute. Barry’s incisive and wise commentary on energy issues in BC and Canada has made a measurable impact on the public policy dialogue.”
- Energy Futures Institute on power imports from the U.S. https://ow.ly/GM0G50US4WY
- Ten recommendations for BC’s energy strategy: https://ow.ly/P2yi50US4XL
- Meeting BC’s energy needs: https://ow.ly/Lhub50US4Yy
- Report on BC power needs and electric vehicles: https://ow.ly/PmjJ50US4YO
- Resource Works on ‘BC Hydro’s impossible task’: https://ow.ly/7ALm50US550
- Resource works: BC should revisit nuclear energy: https://ow.ly/Q8nX50US56v