Natural Resources Committee on March 5th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Your time is up.

We will go now to Madame Brunelle from the Bloc Québécois, for up to five minutes.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Ms. McKenna, on page 5 of your presentation, you show several aspects to your program for meeting future energy needs, including conservation through the Power Smart program. I understand the program; in fact, Hydro-Québec does roughly the same thing.

You mentioned buying more. What links do you have with the wind sector? How does that work? Do you own wind turbines or is it done through royalties? How does it work?

You also mentioned building more, but is that not at odds with the idea of using cleaner energy? Some people even criticize hydroelectricity because forests are flooded and people are displaced.

How do you reconcile your different missions?

[Joanne McKenna]

I'm going to provide what I hope is some clarification.

The way this is presented is basically in three pillars. Hydro's first pillar and priority is to conserve more. We do have a 50% conservation target and we need to meet that. That's what we do, first and foremost.

The second pillar is buying more with the private sector. That's generally done through competitive calls. Currently we have a call for clean power. We're looking for clean power, the rationale being that we have a 90% target for clean: we need to maintain clean energy or electricity in the province. So we buy from the private sector, they bid in for us, and we basically look at a portfolio approach. Wind sometimes gets in. Biomass might. We haven't had any geothermal yet, but basically this is about comparing the prices against one another.

The third pillar, building more, has two components. The first is that we build onto existing infrastructure. In the case of two of our larger hydroelectric facilities, Revelstoke and Mica, when we built those facilities, I think Revelstoke, for instance, had room for five or six generating units, but we only put in three at the time. Now we're adding another one or two. The structure is already there. It's just a matter of actually putting a turbine into the structure.

However, site C would be a new large hydroelectric facility. The province has given us the approval to at least move forward to undertake consultation. That will be quite a lengthy process because, as you've stated, when you're flooding lands you're potentially displacing people in first nations and other communities. That needs to be looked at.

But we see site C as being further out on the spectrum, and I guess if we were able to meet our growing energy needs with the other two, or even part of the third one, maybe we could push the building of site C further out into the future.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

How much did BC Hydro receive from the federal government to subsidize the QUEST program, or other programs, for this year or last?

[Joanne McKenna]

I couldn't give you an exact figure. I can tell you that some of the communities we worked with, like Dockside Green, received federal funding. I can tell you that a tidal feasibility study up in the Queen Charlotte Islands received federal funding.

On some of the other projects at this point, we are not far enough along to get any federal funding. We've applied different times for funding with SDTC when we were looking at some ocean wave technology. I believe federal funds have been allocated towards that, but they're not specifically B.C. Hydro programs or projects.

[Victoria Smith, Manager, Aboriginal and Sustainable Communities Sector, Key Account Management, B.C. Hydro]

The only thing I would add is that a number of the communities we're working with are receiving federal funding. That's how we're leveraging some of our Power Smart program funding. The funding doesn't come directly to B.C. Hydro. It's going to the communities to leverage.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

My next question is for you all.

Could the QUEST program work in large cities? I am thinking specifically about Toronto. It seems to me that it would be so complex to put it in place. You have experience in smaller centres, but could it work in large cities? Would that take 100 years?

[Victoria Smith]

I'll comment on that.

A number of the studies we're undertaking now are with our largest urban centres, the City of Vancouver and the City of Surrey, and they are really taking a holistic approach to how they're doing their community planning. I don't think it needs to take 100 years, but I think some of our leading communities are taking a long view and doing their design charrettes looking out much further into the future to plan for and design for their renewable energy options.

We believe it can work in large urban centres. Most of our projects on the renewable energy mapping and design charrettes now are with large centres.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Ms. Brunelle.

Now we go to our final questioner, Mr. Allen, for up to five minutes.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much to the witnesses for coming. I have about six questions, so I guess I'll have to see which ones I'm going to ask. It has been a very informative session.

First, Ms. McKenna, you talked about getting quick wins, and I agree. I know this will vary a little bit, but on average and assuming the type of system, how long would you typically have in lead time from one end to the other to plan, design, and implement an approach for a community?

My second question goes with that. Has there been an analysis done on the jobs and the green jobs that are created with these community energy systems as opposed to a major energy project like a 600-megawatt coal plant?

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

That's a good question.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Tonks.

[Douglas Stout]

We don't have one on the timing. It varies, depending on the size of the project. Probably for a greenfield project, it's two to five years from conception, design, construction to operation, and that will depend on—

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

That's greenfield, you say?

[Douglas Stout]

That's starting from scratch.

Even to integrate systems together, you're probably talking about one to two years, if you were to start taking existing buildings and connecting them together in a grid. So it will vary depending on where you are and what components you're putting together.

[Joanne McKenna]

I want to comment on the lead time as well.

I think, in B.C. at least, speaking from our own experience, there are a number of projects that I would say are in a high state of readiness, which I think we could capture as quick wins.

Regarding the question on the number of jobs, we had done some analysis years ago. I'm not going to be able to give you any figures. If you do want those, I can dig them up. A large part of this comes when you start to look at this innovation idea and creating these centres of excellence or centres for technology innovation. If you look at B.C. again, we looked at creating a bit of a hydrogen centre there. There's an opportunity on either coast for wave and tidal.

So there are opportunities, I think, to create centres of excellence or innovation that will, or could, in the longer term create both training opportunities and jobs, and that, I think, could lead into manufacturing opportunities as well. But that's not going to be immediate. Part of what I understand from some of those manufacturers is that you have to demonstrate that there's a desire on the part of the country or province, and that they are needed there, and that you're actually going to build projects that would support that.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Chairman, just to follow up on that, if she could send that data on the employment to the committee, that would be much appreciated.

[Victoria Smith]

I'd like to add something to that.

As part of our provincial energy plan, I know there were some forecasts done on both energy savings and person-hours of labour created in order to reach some of those targets. We can follow up with that information for you as well.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

I appreciate that. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

I'm interested because we have about $700 million or more left in that ecoENERGY for renewable power program. I know they want to start a wind power project in my area, and we're starting to get a little bit of fragmentation in terms of who supports it and who doesn't.

So when you talk about these renewable energy systems, what kind of “not in my backyard” issues have you run into with respect to these different generation systems, and have you run into that, along with push-back from the local community?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Who would like to start on that one?

Mr. Stout, go ahead.

[Douglas Stout]

I'll start with the easy ones, when we talk about the solar, geothermal, geo-exchange, or those kinds of things. That's an easy one. Out of sight, out of mind, right? So that is a lot easier thing to get off the ground and move along, in most cases.

[Joanne McKenna]

I think the other matter—and I referenced it earlier—is getting the message out that biomass and biofuels are not dirty, and that landfill gas is not dirty. If you look at our European friends, who have much tighter densities in their areas, they're actually extremely efficient in the use of their municipal solid waste and their waste recovery, and I think we could learn a lot from that. But part of it is going to be that education piece.

And do you know what? Start young, because it's the kids who come home and tell us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Ydreos.