Barry Penner and the Energy Futures Institute keep a close eye on (pardon the pun) the current supply and outlook for electrical power in British Columbia.
The former BC cabinet minister’s latest report notes how BC now has been a net importer of electricity for three straight years, much of it from the US.
Yet the US is facing challenges to meet soaring domestic needs for power, and BC faces the risk that the Trump administration could suddenly decide to limit exports of power.
Even BC Hydro has raised the question of “potential limitations on access to US markets because of the current trade dispute.”
The Site C deficit
The Energy Futures Institute reported BC Hydro’s imports of power in 2025 totalled 5,591 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity. That’s more than BC’s new Site C dam can provide — 5,100 GWh in a normal water year.
And BC Hydro has reported that the costs of imported electricity exceeded $2 billion for the 2023-4 and 2024-5 fiscal years combined.
Policy dissonance
Penner also noted Canada’s new trade agreement with China to import up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles — and he pointed out: “It begs a question about where the additional electricity will come from.”
Penner raises the vital question of whether electricity planning is keeping pace with growing demand and reliability requirements.
“We know there’s a large backlog of unserved electrical demand waiting in BC Hydro’s connection queue, totaling 7,291 megawatts, or six times the maximum output of the Site C dam. Of that, 6,962 MW were industrial loads such as mines, LNG facilities and data centres — a 193-MW increase from 2024.”
BC Hydro says demand for electricity in BC is set to increase by 15 per cent or more by 2030.
Intermittent vs. firm power
Hydro says it is weighing 14 proposals from independent producers to provide “clean power” amounting to more than 9,100 gigawatt-hours per year. That’s close to what Site C can provide, and is enough to power about 900,000 homes annually. It’s also nearly twice what Hydro was targeting.
BC Hydro says these projects could begin coming online as early as fall 2031, with all projects in service by Oct. 2033. But at this point the 14 proposals for 13 wind-power projects and one solar project are ideas on paper. There’s no word on the cost of the power.
And the projects would provide only intermittent power, depending on how much the wind blows and how much sunshine gets to us.
The gas advantage
Back to Penner: “As President Trump continues to threaten the economies of other countries, we should be taking steps to make ourselves less vulnerable to the United States.
“However, BC government policies are having the opposite effect by restricting the use of natural gas for home and commercial heating, requiring more electrical use of an already strained power grid.
“At the same time, the BC government is clinging to its electric vehicles (EV) mandates for the 2026 model year. This not only increases costs for consumers while limiting choice, it also pushes up demand for imported electricity.
“These policy choices — banning natural gas heating while mandating rapid electrification — requires more imported power from the U.S., representing a serious case of policy dissonance.
“If we truly want greater economic independence, we need a realistic energy plan that accounts for demand growth and the reliability of future supply, not just aspirational goals.”
Using natural gas to generate power has long been a feature in BC, and is of pressing importance as LNG developments are unable at this stage to get sufficient power from BC Hydro.
The BC government accepts that LNG plants will burn gas for power unless and until enough Hydro power is available, but does not approve of burning gas to generate power for AI data centres.
BC, instead, will launch a competitive selection process for artificial intelligence and data-centre projects that would see companies fight over a set amount of power. It will favour companies that offer the most economic and environmental benefits, says Energy Minister Adrian Dix.
Alberta and Saskatchewan are moving in the other direction: yes to burning gas to power AI.
A less doctrinaire approach
Thus Geoff Russ at Resource Works writes: “This is where BC’s overlooked advantage should re-enter the conversation: natural gas. BC is blessed with two major clean-energy assets, hydro and gas, and that the ‘electrify everything’ imperative is starting to strain the system.
“BC should be less doctrinaire about when and where it uses gas to bridge shortfalls and keep industry moving.”
And natural-resource veteran Jim Rushton also wrote for Resource Works: “The BC government continues to express an aversion to nuclear energy and natural-gas electricity generation, as though there is a supply surplus. This . . . needs reassessment.
“BC has already presented its electricity rationing policy. The government plans to impose strict limits on electricity use by data centres and AI. It also does not provide a clear pathway for data centre owners to provide their own power and connect to the grid independently.”
A call for sovereignty
To close, more from the Energy Futures Institute: “The Institute also calls on the BC Government to reverse restrictions on the use of natural gas for home and commercial heating embedded in the Zero Carbon Step Code, which has been adopted by some municipalities and will become mandatory province-wide by 2030 under the government’s CleanBC plan.
“It is difficult to square these costly provincial policies with Premier Eby’s repeated statement that ‘British Columbia should stand on its own two feet.’ If the Province is serious about sovereignty, it must stop making BC more dependent on imported electricity to keep the lights on.”
