12 March 2026

by Tom Hackney and Bill Andrews

BC Hydro has applied to the BCUC for permission to implement four optional time-varying rates for its Transmission Service customers, approximately 200 customers that take service at high voltages. 

BC Hydro says these optional rate designs could produce lower electricity bills for certain Transmission Service customers, while incenting these customers to shift their consumption away from times of peak demand. The objective is to reduce BC Hydro’s peak demand and thereby reduce the costs paid by all customers.

Transmission Service customers are currently served by Rate Schedule (RS) 1830. RS 1830 has charges for energy (kWh), and for demand (kW), and these charges don’t change by time of day or season. 

Two of the proposed optional rates are time-of-use rate designs. They have extra-high energy rates during times of high demand for electricity (defined as 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. from November to February), and extra-low energy rates at all other times. One proposed optional rate is a simple time-of-use rate, in which the energy charge varies but the capacity is constant. The other proposed optional rate has a varying energy charge and a varying capacity charge, to reinforce the price signal during times of high demand for electricity.

The other two rate designs proposed by BC Hydro are called critical peak pricing rate designs. They have extra-high energy rates, but only during periods of especially high demand (defined by BC Hydro) between 4:00 pm and 8:00 pm in the winter. The proposal is that BC Hydro would nominate these critical peak periods on a day-ahead basis, on a maximum of 15 days per year. One of proposed optional rate design is a simple critical peak pricing rate. The other combines critical peak pricing and time-of-use pricing.

Being optional rate designs, Transmission Service customers could choose to take service under one of the proposed rate designs or to remain on the default rate, RS 1830.

BC Hydro says all customers, not just participating Transmission Service customers, would benefit by implementation of the proposed optional time-vary rates for Transmission Service customers. As noted above, the idea is that Transmission Service customers that participate in one of the four optional rates would be incented by the rate design to reduce their demand for power at times when the BC Hydro system is the most stressed. BC Hydro estimates that the four proposed optional rates together could result in 21 – 62 MW of capacity savings per year. If correct, this would materially reduce or delay the need for BC Hydro to acquire more capacity resources.

BC Hydro proposes the rates as pilot projects, which would be evaluated three and a half years from now, in October 2029.

BCSEA is intervening in the BCUC review. BCSEA supports in principle optional rate designs that encourage the efficient use of electricity, and particularly rate design that reduce the need to acquire new capacity resources.