BC Hydro’s unaudited revenues for the 2023/24 fiscal year are reported to be $7,131 million, a reduction of $896 million compared to the previous fiscal year, according to the BC public accounts released August 22, 2024.
(Editor’s note: BC Hydro has now published its fiscal 2023/24 annual report. Its revenues have in fact dropped $1.347 billion compared to the previous year.)
What happened? BC Hydro has not yet issued its own financial statements for the 2023/24 year, but it’s likely the current drought in BC is to blame, with reservoir levels now “tracking below the ten-year historic average” according to its December 31, 2023 quarterly report. This reduces BC Hydro’s ability to export energy through its PowerEx trading subsidiary, leading to lower revenues. In the nine months to December 31, 2023, BC Hydro’s total revenues were already $1.06 billion lower than the corresponding period in the previous year; its possible the last quarter showed a slight recovery from that position.
But there are still some interesting questions left unanswered. For example, how did BC Hydro manage to earn $323 million in net income, a drop of only $37 million from the previous year, despite losing so much revenue? Its last quarterly report shows operating expenses having risen $235 million (five percent) in the first nine months of the year compared to last year, so increased operating efficiency is unlikely to be the explanation.
And what were the full-year figures for BC Hydro’s electricity demand? Given the government’s recent announcements of billions of dollars to support electrification, one would expect demand to be increasing. Yet residential electricity sales in the first nine months of the year were actually down over 4 percent on the previous year.
Let’s hope a clearer picture emerges once BC Hydro’s annual report for 2023/24 is published. Stay tuned…