BC Hydro now forecasts it does not have the capacity to meet peak demand by 2030, and that’s not including electricity required for the North Coast Transmission Line. Are we heading for winter evening blackouts?
Introduction
Almost two years ago, I wrote about BC Hydro’s looming electricity shortfall. Since then, the utility has been busy procuring generation from the private sector. According to its May 2025 forecast, there should be no problems until at least fiscal year 2045 (F2045).
Unfortunately, new evidence has emerged that this was overly optimistic. Let’s take a look.
Energy versus capacity
First, it’s important to understand the difference between the two main elements of an electricity plan: energy and capacity.
Energy, usually expressed in gigawatt hours (GWh), represents the total electricity generated during the year. Capacity, on the other hand, is a measure of how much power can be delivered at a point in time, and comes in megawatts (MW).
BC Hydro’s new Site C dam, for example, is expected to generate 5,100 GWh of energy each year, and has the capacity to generate 1,100 MW of power at peak times.
Solar generation, however, is quite different. The ShTSaQU Solar Project, one of the winners in the 2024 Call for Power, is estimated to produce 215 GWh of electricity per year. However, its capacity of 104 MW, what it can produce in a good hour on a sunny day, is of no use when planning for times of peak demand (after dark in winter). BC Hydro, sensibly enough, doesn’t count on solar at all for peak capacity. Instead, any electricity generated by solar simply reduces the amount that is needed from other sources, and often provides that electricity at a lower cost.
BC Hydro forecasts both the energy and capacity it will need to meet demand for the next twenty years in its Integrated Resource plans. It must have enough of both.
Lack of energy
The new evidence is contained in a recent filing to the BCUC. BC Hydro provided an updated (2026) demand forecast, which makes for disturbing reading.
The new filing states that the energy forecast for F2030 is now 2,700 GWh higher than last year’s estimate, which sounds innocuous enough. But what BC Hydro doesn’t make clear is that this changes the previous forecast of a 1,711 GWh surplus into a deficit of 989 GWh. This is not public sector transparency at its finest.
The increase in the demand forecast is attributed to “advancement of several upstream natural gas and LNG terminal projects as well as new data centre and AI [artificial intelligence] related load”, and “potential economic downturn impacts” which failed to materialize.
BC Hydro says there are “significant energy resources in the province that can be developed to meet increasing energy needs” although it doesn’t say what they are. Given that even its 2024 Call for Power won’t yield results until F2031, it’s hard to see how any new sources of energy can be developed to address a F2030 deficit.
At least with an energy deficit, BC Hydro’s reservoir system allows some flexibility to import electricity from the US and Alberta. It can even take advantage of low prices, e.g. during summer days when there are surpluses of solar generation in California, preserving the energy that’s stored as water behind BC’s dams.
Electricity imports are costly, though. BC Hydro spent nearly $2 billion on imports in the last two years thanks to the drought. Imports also make us more reliant on our neighbours, which is undesirable for many reasons.
Lack of capacity
While the energy deficit is concerning, there’s now something bigger to worry about. The updated 2026 forecast shows, for the first time, a looming shortage of capacity.
Capacity demands are expected to increase by 500 MW in F2030, for the same reasons we will need more energy. The previously forecast surplus of 415 MW in F2030 is now a deficit of 85 MW. It could actually be worse – BC Hydro is counting on some capacity from the wind projects approved in the 2024 and 2025 Calls for Power, which are not expected to be delivered until at least F2031.
As BC Hydro notes, new options to meet peak demand are “currently more limited”, owing to long procurement lead times. It thinks the best option to address the capacity shortfall appears to be utility-scale batteries, but it also admits these may not be available in time. The most optimistic example it found elsewhere was a 6-year lead time for a project in Maine. That won’t solve a F2030 deficit.
This is serious. BC Hydro forecasts it won’t be able to generate enough electricity to serve peak demand, no matter how much cheap energy it imports and stores at other times of year.
If no additional generation can be brought online in time, BC Hydro may have to import electricity to meet its peak demand. Since BC’s peak demand is in winter, the same as our neighbours’, imported electricity will be considerably more expensive, if it’s available at all. If not, we’re looking at “load shedding” (industry speak for blackouts).
Interesting…
At the same time BC Hydro announced its increased 2026 demand forecast, it asked that the review of its 2025 Integrated Resource plan be delayed, as it expects “material new developments within the next three months”. The BC Utilities Commission consented to the delay and the proceeding will restart in late May.
BC Hydro has plenty of options for adding generation in the longer term, say a decade or more into the future, and I’ll cover those shortly, but if it wants to solve its F2030 capacity deficit, it’ll need something that’s already built. It’s possible that one of the respondents to its 2025 Request for Expressions of Interest for Capacity has proposed something useful, but if not, I can think of two other sources of reliable electricity.
An 85 MW hydroelectric facility at Powell River, operated by Powell River Energy Inc. recently failed to obtain an export permit from the Canadian Energy Regulator (CER), which was opposed by local residents and a First Nation. The CER will now consider granting an export licence, but this process is more challenging, and may not be successful.
BC Hydro appears to have tried and failed to buy this electricity in the past, but perhaps a combination of BC Hydro’s increased urgency and Powell River Energy Inc.’s risk of not being able to sell to US customers will encourage them to come to terms?
On a larger scale, BC Hydro may decide to extend its contract for the 275 MW Island Generation gas-fired plant in Campbell River. Since 2010 the plant has been used as a “peaking facility” to meet peak winter demand, and in 2022 BC Hydro extended the contract until October 2026 because it had discovered damage to the submarine transmission cables delivering power to the Island, and wanted an insurance policy while it conducted repairs.
While both of these facilities are on Vancouver Island, they are part of BC Hydro’s integrated system and therefore could contribute to solving the capacity deficit at times of peak demand.
Conclusion
Ministerial dithering and delay has already led to the government being forced to ration electricity to new data centres and AI businesses. And let’s be clear, the forecast figures I’ve provided above are only for BC Hydro’s Reference forecast – what it considers the mostly likely outcome.
Critically, the Reference forecast does not include enough electricity to meet CleanBC’s electrification goals (not that there seems to be much enthusiasm for that program at present), or to serve LNG and mining customers who might use the proposed North Coast Transmission Line.
For the first time, BC Hydro did the math to show how much electricity would be needed to do both. By F2030, this would add around 2,000 GWh of energy and 300 MW of capacity to the deficits of the latest Reference forecast.
Despite the failure of CleanBC to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, BC is still slowly moving towards electric vehicles and building heat, and the oil and gas sector is expanding its electricity-powered extraction.
The new leadership at the Ministry of Energy and BC Hydro seem to be picking up the pace, with more purchases of private sector energy and the search for options to solve the capacity shortages.
But time is running out. BC Hydro really needs to do something, and fast. If this is not resolved, BC Hydro may not be able to keep the lights on across BC during those long, dark winter evenings.