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Canada’s third-most populous province is giving the go-ahead to wind farms
Bloomberg News
Canada’s third-most populous province is giving the go-ahead to wind farms worth as much as $6 billion.
The electricity company BC Hydro, owned by the west coast province of British Columbia, awarded 30-year purchase agreements to nine projects promising almost 5,000 gigawatt hours per year of electricity, adding about eight per cent to the region’s grid by 2031. B.C. will also exempt wind projects from environmental assessments.
The province’s power demand is expected to rise by 15 per cent or more by 2030, so it will issue more calls for new power generation over the coming years. B.C. is “well-positioned to add more intermittent renewables” while its dams “act as batteries,” the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions said.
The renewable-friendly approach positions BC at odds with its oil-rich neighbour Alberta to the east and U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, who campaigned on a hydrocarbons-focused mantra of “drill, baby, drill.”
“That presents a huge opportunity for us,” Premier David Eby said at a press conference in Vancouver, referring to B.C.’s neighbours.
Eight of the nine winning projects are 51 per cent owned by Indigenous groups known as First Nations. A minimum First Nations equity stake of 25 per cent was a requirement to apply.
The call for power was source-agnostic but wind proposals had the best cost profiles, Eby said. The average price from successful projects is about 40 per cent lower than the utility’s last call for clean power in 2010, the energy ministry said.
B.C. — a rugged region of fjords and mountains — has enjoyed abundant hydroelectricity for years, but growing demand is pushing it to embark on a grid-wide upgrade worth $36 billion over the coming decade. In recent years, due to drier weather, it also imported significant amounts of power.
“You’ll see more and more permitting reform,” Eby said at a press conference, pointing to potential improvements in mining.
Private-sector bidders who partnered with First Nations for the successful projects include Elemental Energy, Capstone Infrastructure, Innergex Renewable Energy Inc., Ecoener SA and EDF Renewables, the B.C. government said.
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