BC Hydro’s Long-Term Resource Planning and Clean Energy
BC Hydro’s integrated resource planning process shapes the province’s electricity procurement for decades ahead. By projecting future demand and evaluating available supply options — from conservation programmes to new generation — the utility identifies the timing and scale of purchases from independent producers and sets the policy context for clean energy development across British Columbia.
What Integrated Resource Planning Is
Integrated resource planning (IRP) is a formal process by which a regulated utility assesses its long-term need for electricity supply and the most cost-effective and reliable combination of resources to meet that need. It differs from short-term operational planning by looking ahead 20 to 30 years and explicitly comparing demand-side options — energy efficiency and conservation — with supply-side options including new generation, storage, and transmission.
The BC Utilities Commission requires BC Hydro to file long-term resource plans at regular intervals. These plans are subject to public review and commission oversight, providing a degree of transparency and accountability in how the province’s electricity future is shaped. BC Hydro’s energy in BC resources provide background on how the utility thinks about its generation mix and long-term planning obligations.
Demand Forecasting and Its Assumptions
The starting point for any IRP is a demand forecast: how much electricity will BC customers need in each year over the planning horizon? Demand forecasting draws on economic growth projections, population trends, industrial activity assumptions, and increasingly, scenarios for how quickly electrification of transportation and heating will displace fossil fuels.
BC Hydro’s forecasts have historically varied significantly across IRP cycles, reflecting genuine uncertainty about factors that are difficult to predict. The utility’s early 2010s forecasts anticipated substantial demand growth that did not materialise, leading to a period of perceived surplus supply. More recent planning reflects a sharply different view — anticipating rising demand from electrification commitments and industrial growth, particularly in the LNG sector and northern BC — which has brought new generation procurement back onto the agenda.
The Supply Mix: Conservation, Storage, and New Generation
BC Hydro’s IRP evaluates potential resources in a hierarchy that typically places conservation and energy efficiency first, on the grounds that avoiding energy use is generally cheaper than generating it. After exhausting cost-effective conservation potential, the plan turns to existing resources — optimising the dispatch of existing hydro storage, expanding interties with neighbouring jurisdictions, and deploying demand response — before considering new generation.
New generation options typically considered include run-of-river hydro, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, pumped storage hydro, and increasingly battery storage. Each option is evaluated on its cost, its contribution to energy and capacity at different times of year, its environmental characteristics, and its development lead time.
How IPPs Fit Into the Plan
Independent power producers play a specific role in BC Hydro’s supply planning. BC Hydro does not typically build new run-of-river or wind generation itself — these technologies have been delivered exclusively by independent producers under long-term contracts. The IRP determines when BC Hydro needs new supply and what mix of technologies makes sense, and procurement processes then invite IPPs to bid projects that meet those specifications.
For independent producers, the IRP signals — approximately — when procurement activity is likely, and which technologies are being evaluated favourably. A plan that shows a growing supply gap in the mid-2020s and identifies run-of-river as a preferred clean supply option creates a commercial environment in which developers can reasonably invest in project development ahead of a formal call for tenders. Natural Resources Canada tracks Canadian energy planning developments across provinces, providing broader context on how BC’s approach compares to other jurisdictions.
Clean Energy Calls and Their Timing
BC Hydro’s clean energy procurement processes — variously called Clean Power Calls, Clean Energy Calls, or Standing Offer Programmes — are triggered by IRP conclusions that additional supply is needed. The gap between that determination and the issuance of a call can be significant: internal planning, regulatory approval of the procurement approach, development of contract templates, and stakeholder consultation all take time.
Independent producers who have projects in advanced development — with completed environmental assessments, water licences, and First Nations agreements in place — are best positioned to respond quickly when a call is issued. This is why companies like Syntaris Power invest in project development during periods when procurement activity is low: the preparation time required means that projects need to be ready long before a commercial opportunity materialises.
Electrification and Future Demand Growth
BC’s CleanBC plan, announced in 2018 and updated subsequently, commits the province to reducing greenhouse gas emissions across transportation, buildings, and industry through electrification. Meeting these commitments requires a substantial increase in electricity supply: replacing gasoline vehicles with electric ones, replacing natural gas furnaces with heat pumps, and supporting new industrial electric loads all add to system demand.
BC Hydro’s most recent resource planning work has quantified this electrification-driven demand growth, and the numbers point to a need for large volumes of new clean generation over the coming decades. Run-of-river hydro, wind, and solar — the technologies in which BC’s independent power sector has the deepest experience — are all expected to have significant roles in meeting this need.