Syntaris Power

The Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources responded to IPP critics in an open letter. The letter responds to unions backed by NDP and related organizations, discusses the benefits of the industry in bringing jobs to rural communities, facts on the current energy needs for B.C. from a historical context, among other things.

“Because of poor planning by the NDP during their 10 years in office, B.C. has been dependent on imported power for seven of the past 10 years. British Columbians have been dependent on other jurisdictions, like the United States, to keep our lights on. Our government does not believe that’s the right thing to do, nor should they. That’s why our government is committed to making B.C. electricity self sufficient — the same vision that W.A.C. Bennett had that gave us the legacy we have today.

This industry brings jobs, investment and ongoing revenue to British Columbia. It has the added benefit of creating a service sector that provides jobs in rural communities. At a time of such economic upheaval, it’s the height of irresponsibility for politically motivated critics to try and shut an industry down, based on a campaign of misinformation.”

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Hydro says demand for electricity is falling as forestry and mining slow

Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun, January 7, 2009

A slowing provincial economy is getting the blame for BC Hydro’s decision to slash by 40 per cent the amount of power it sought in its recent call for green energy.

Tumbling demand for electricity in the forestry sector, an expected decline in sales of consumer goods, and a presumed drop in housing starts over the next two years are all cited by Hydro in a recent filing to the British Columbia Utilities Commission.

Hydro forecasts that those factors, and others including a mining industry slowdown, will dampen overall growth in demand for electricity in B.C. — reflecting a global economic downturn over the next two years.

As a result, it’s cutting the amount of power it proposes to buy from independent power producers in the Clean Call for electricity, which closed Nov. 25, 2008, from 5,000 gigawatt hours per year to 3,000 gigawatt hours per year.

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Independent power producers are offering BC Hydro enough power in response to a new green-energy call to light every home in the province — at least on paper. Hydro reported Friday that it has received proposals for 17,000 gigawatt hours of electricity — primarily small hydro and wind — in response to its clean call, which closed this week. That’s equivalent to a third of Hydro’s annual output — the amount of power consumed each year by the Crown corporation’s residential customers.
Preliminary tallies from the call, which closed Tuesday, show Hydro received bids from 43 proponents for a total of 68 projects.

It’s the biggest amount of electricity ever bid to Hydro by the independents, and it includes several comparatively large-scale projects, including an offshore wind farm and a 17-stream run-of-river hydro network in Bute Inlet. In total, there are 45 small hydro projects and 19 wind projects, with each sector offering more than 8,000 gigawatt hours. The remaining four proposals include two for waste heat, one biogas and one biomass project. Hydro intends to accept only 5,000 gigawatt hours. Hydro is mandated by the province to make B.C. electricity self-sufficient by 2016 — but plans include conservation measures to cut consumption and enhancements to its network of large-scale heritage assets.

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News Release

Vancouver, BC—Syntaris Power Corporation is pleased to announce that it has submitted three hydroelectric projects into the BC Hydro 2008 Clean Call for Power. The projects represent a total estimated capacity of approximately 104 Megawatts of electricity.

“Our top notch professional team worked hard on developing these submissions and we are confident that the quality of these projects will make them extremely attractive to BC Hydro,” says Syntaris Power President and CEO Robert Fraser. “We are also pleased with the support we have received from our First Nations partners and look forward to working together on building and commissioning these projects in the near future.”

The projects submitted to the BC Hydro Call for Clean Power are:

• Kinskuch River Project, located 27 km east of Stewart, BC which is estimated to generate 76 MW of power

• Maselpanik Creek Project, located 51 km east of Chilliwack and 35 km south of Hope, BC which is estimated to generate 13 MW of power in the Fraser Valley.

• Culliton Creek Project, located near Squamish, which is estimated to generate 15 MW of power

These three projects combined have the potential to displace over 210,000 tonnes of CO2 annually*, equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by over 42,000 cars per year. Development of these three hydroelectric projects will help the province reach its goal of achieving energy self-sufficiency by 2016. The BC Energy Plan requires that 90 per cent of all new electrical generation will come from clean or renewable resources.

* Based on the calculation that for every Mega-watt-hour of green power produced, 0.52 Tonnes of CO2 is offset from thermal power plants

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