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
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.
