Norm!Ville
Financial shenanigans at BC Hydro is a story that Norman Farrell and other bloggodome adjacent folks, including the late, great Rafe Mair, have been following for a long, long time now.
The fine folks at the Lotuslandian legacy media organs, not so much.
Anyway.
One of Norm's recent takes was posted first at his blog and is now up over at the Tyee as well.
While you are likely familiar with how much Site C is going to cost us, there is also the matter of all those gold-plated, risk-free 'Independent Power Producer' (IPP) contracts that are a long time running already and will run for much, much longer before they're done:
...The (IPP) choice was made not for the benefit of electricity consumers or B.C. taxpayers, but to satisfy the (BC)Liberals’ preference for private enterprise over public. That preference was almost universally shared by editorialists, media commentators and political writers. Government energy policies were roundly applauded.
But an important aspect went unmentioned. The new power deals assigned financial risks to BC Hydro and guaranteed revenues and profits to IPPs.
Indeed, the provincial utility has lost massive sums because of these contracts.
Since (then Premier Gordon) Campbell’s friend Larry Bell promised to assist private producers, BC Hydro has purchased almost $14 billion in power from IPPs — most at two to four times the market price.
BC Hydro is committed to buy more than $40 billion worth of additional electricity under contracts that run for 15 to 60 years...
So.
Why have we been 'forced' to buy all this additional power, which is often produced at times of the year when run-off is highest and we need it least, at ridiculous prices?
Why, because, of course, demand has been rising, rising, rising over the last fifteen years as we have been told over and over and over again.
Right?
Wrong:
...Unfortunately, sales to BC consumers have been flat since 2005. Domestic sales by kWh units were 1% lower in 2019 than in 2005 although the amount charged consumers increased by 89%, which is more than 3x the rate of inflation.
I expect the coronavirus calamity will be blamed for a financial predicament that has been developing but largely ignored for years. For that, heads should roll at BC Hydro’s boardroom and executives suites...
That is all.
_______
Rafe used to stop by here occasionally, sometimes to agree, sometimes to whack me up the side of the head (but usually in a nice way)....He sure did hate the way I used a courier font with italics for the pull quotes...I ignored him on that one.....Sure do miss the old curmudgeon.
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2 comments:
Yes, I too miss him
If Hydro tries blaming the virus they better make it a really, really good story because it ought to start with once upon a time there was a premier known as el gordo who did the very best he could to take care of his friends and one way he did that.............
Once the IPPs., etc. started and Norm and Rafe were writing about it, I started reading about it. Once the msm starts with the b.s. some of us will have to start writing letters to the editors so get another message out. Usually the Sun won't print a lot of it but small local papers have. it will give us something to do while self isolating. thanks for giving us heads up.
if the province wants to save money just force hydro to cancel those contracts. Hey, el gorod "cancelled' the contracts for 9K hospital cleaners, the largest mass firing of women in Canadian history, so if it was o.k. for the them, the NDP can do it to save money and put it into programs to deal with COVID. Its not like the public ever benefitted from el gorodo's games and that includes the billion spent on the stupid meters.
squirrel or shiny object syndrome?
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