[misher]

If I am a politician, what do I do? The answer is to create a diversion and try to pin the blame on the previous government. Since the 1990s BC Hydro has be acquiring some electricity from independent power producers (IPPs), which include Rio Tinto Alcan, pulp mills and the Columbia Power/Columbia Basin Trust, which are arms of the government. Unlike with BC Hydro projects, the cost of these acquisitions are easily identifiable because there is a long-term contract that contains the price.

In contrast, the costs for a project like Site C will be buried for 70 years in successive financial statements.
The gist of “Zapped” is that the contracts that BC Hydro entered into with IPPs in the mid 2000’s were overpriced and not needed because of political interference by the governing BC Liberals. BC Hydro independently forecast its electricity requirements and acquired or built generation accordingly. For the Zapped thesis to be correct, the BC Liberals conspired with BC Hydro to inflate the load forecast or forced the pen of the forecaster. There is no evidence of this.

BC Hydro’s forecasts have been consistently high since the year 2000 and demand has been more or less flat during the same period. The result is that more electricity has been acquired than is necessary. No conspiracy and no silent hand. Just incorrect forecasting.

https://biv.com/article/2019/02/prov...ically-charged