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B.C. Hydro looks at smart meters, dual rates

New programs to reduce household energy consumption across province
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Powering Up With Whistler's power consumption expected to go up 20 per cent by 2015, a new power station has been installed in Function Junction.

B.C. currently imports 10 to 15 per cent of its electricity from outside the province, but if new programs being considered by B.C. Hydro win approval the province should be able to keep up with demand during peak hours.

At the last Union of B.C. Municipalities conference in September, Premier Gordon Campbell announced plans to install smart power meters in every household in the province over the next five years. Campbell repeated that commitment in the recent throne speech, confirming that the program was underway and should be completed in 2012.

As well, B.C. Hydro applied to the B.C. Utilities Commission to bring in a two-step rate structure that would charge customers different rates for power based on consumption.

Gillian Robinson Riddell, a spokesperson for B.C. Hydro, confirmed that the two items are related, and are part of a B.C. Hydro plan to reduce household consumption. There are also discussions to introduce an hourly rate system where people could be charged more for using electricity at peak times.

“B.C. Hydro is encouraging people to think of ways to cut back on energy consumption,” she said. “What we need to have, and what we’ve committed to, is for 50 per cent of our future energy needs to come through conservation. We’re not building new supplies of electricity, we’re not importing or buying, we’re encouraging people to use less electricity. For one thing, it’s the cheapest way to meet those future needs, and second there is room for people to do that.”

According to Robinson Riddell, the average home in B.C. used about 9,300 Kilowatt Hours of electricity per year about 20 years ago. Despite the fact that major appliances and fixtures are more energy efficient, household energy consumption now averages more than 11,000 kWh annually.

“The primary force is the increase in electrical appliances we have in our homes, while homes themselves have gotten larger as well through the 1990s,” she said. “And we have lots of things that we’ve never had before, like multiple cell phones that need to be charged, desktops and laptop computers, digital cable boxes, more than one television.

“Major appliances are much more energy efficient, but we’ve replaced that (efficiency) with other things. All those heated driveways and floors add demand.”

According to Robinson Riddell, the smart meters allow real-time metering of power usage as well as more detailed information on how and when power is used. The current system requires meter readers to visit each household every 60 days, and customers are billed for how much power they use in that time.

The meters can also alert B.C. Hydro to power outages. Previously, they would have no indication of when and where power might be out until they received phone calls from customers.

Initially the information collected by the smart meters will be used by B.C. Hydro, but Robinson Riddell says the plan is to share that information with customers. The cost is estimated to be $480 to $530 million to outfit roughly 1.7 million households with smart meters.

“There might be a component that lets customers view their bill online and get detailed information, or to look at their meter to find out what they’re using moment by moment,” she said. “The goal is to encourage people to be more energy conscious. When they come home from work they might turn on the TV, the computer, turn the oven on to make dinner, run a load of laundry, put the dishwasher on, and right now you don’t know what that’s costing you. Smart metering can tell you that each hour after you came home you’re using $4.50 per hour. It’s been shown in other places that people respond to metering by cutting their power usage.”

Robinson Riddell says that also opens up the possibility of creating time of use rates for B.C. Hydro customers. For example, B.C. Hydro imports most of its power between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. daily, when people return home from work. If power costs slightly more during that time, households might decide to wash dishes or laundry at night or in the morning, and to limit the number of appliances running until the rates come down.

When enough people cut back their power usage, B.C. won’t need to import power to make up for the shortfall, says Robinson Riddell.

Time of use rates are still being discussed at this point, but a two-step system is very much in the works and could be in effect by this summer.

The two-step system would set a rate of 6.23 cents per kilowatt hour for households using less than 1,600 kWh during the 60-day billing period, and 6.98 cents per kWh for households using more.

It’s still the cheapest power in Canada, says Robinson Riddell — Toronto customers pay 12 cents per kWh — but it might convince some households to reevaluate their power usage to save money.

The 1,600 kWh threshold is a little below the average household.

“It’s something that the B.C. Utilities Commission asked us to look into because 20 per cent of our customers… are using 40 per cent of the residential load,” she said. “Everybody can cut back somewhere, with the right incentive.”

According to Whistler 2020, energy use is up from 2.035 million Gigajoules in 2002 to 2.158 million GJ in 2006, while per capita usage actually dropped from a high of 82.3 GJ in 2005 to 78.8 GJ.

B.C. Hydro is expecting Whistler’s overall energy use to increase by 20 per cent by 2015, prompting the installation of a new substation in Function Junction last year.