Photo: New power lines lead to Ashlu River private power project.

Environmentalist Joe Foy believes “large industrial users have got to be getting worried” about the provincial government’s decision to order B.C. Hydro to stop relying on the Burrard Thermal Generating Facility in its energy-supply planning.

The province’s move, announced on October 28, means that the greenhouse-gas-producing power plant will only be used as a backup in the case of outages. B.C. Hydro will have to rely on other sources to satisfy new demand, such as private run-of-river power projects.

According to Foy, national campaign director for the Wilderness Committee, B.C. Hydro’s big industrial customers have had a “sweetheart deal” for years, thanks in large part to the power authority’s reliance on large hydroelectric power plants.

“I don’t know how much longer this sweetheart deal can last with so many private power pigs at the trough,” Foy said. “These [industrial] guys have got to be wondering whether their ability to run those factories is going to be in jeopardy.”

Due to the low cost of electricity, Foy claimed large industrial users have been able to keep their operating costs down. But he said B.C. Hydro will be forced to satisfy more of its energy needs with the expensive power-purchase agreements it’s making with independent power producers, or IPPs.

Foy said he believes the Liberal government is “using Burrard Thermal as a smokescreen to loot the taxpayers and give it to their private power friends”.

Foy also said, “Nothing will change at Burrard Thermal. It will still be used when needed. All that will happen is that B.C. Hydro is now forced to buy 6,000 gigawatt hours they can’t use from private power producers at rates far above market rate.”

Jake Jacobs, public affairs officer for the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, did not make Minister Blair Lekstrom immediately available for comment.

On Monday morning (November 2), Lekstrom will make a keynote presentation at the Powering the Clean Economy conference in Vancouver. The event, which runs from Sunday to Tuesday (November 1 to 3), is the seventh annual conference of the Independent Power Producers Association of B.C.

When asked to comment about the timing of the Burrard Thermal announcement and Lekstrom’s address, Foy fumed, “This is the big hunk of bloody meat that he brings to the power guys.”