Tom Hackney

10 June 2026

The BCUC has issued its Final Report on its Review of Renewable Natural Gas Definition and Accounting.

After almost a hundred procedural and substantive submissions—many quite long—by the BCUC and more than a dozen interveners, the BCUC has effectively concluded that it does not need to change the way it is overseeing the acquisition of renewable natural gas (RNG) by BC’s gas utilities.

However, the BCUC says that it now prefers the term “fossil gas” to “conventional natural gas,” and “biomethane” to “renewable natural gas.”

The proceeding began in July 2022, following a letter to the BCUC from Stand.earth. Stand.earth claimed the BCUC’s current definition of RNG allowed FortisBC Energy Inc. to purchase RNG in ways that did not reduce GHG emissions in BC, and further that the definition of RNG eroded trust in the BCUC and energy utilities.

Substantively, Stand.earth claimed that FortisBC Energy Inc.’s practice of procuring RNG from producers outside BC for notional delivery to customers in BC did not, as purported, result in GHG emissions being reduced in BC.

Stand.earth also claimed that there is not a proper accounting regime in place to ensure that any GHG reduction benefits claimed in BC for using RNG may not also be claimed by someone outside BC (i.e. double-counting).

By way of background, the BC government’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Clean Energy) Regulation (“GGRR”) sets out rules under which BC’s gas utilities may use ratepayer money to acquire RNG for sale to their customers. Under the Clean Energy Act, such acquisitions are defined as having the purpose of reducing GHG emissions in BC. The BCUC is charged with overseeing the correct implementation of the utilities’ acquisition of RNG, but the BCUC may not second-guess the government as to whether the GGRR rules are effective.

The review formally revolved around whether the BCUC’s definition of RNG should be changed, with the apparent premise that if the BCUC changed the definition that could change whether RNG produced outside of BC would be acceptable under the GGRR.

BCSEA argued that the BCUC’s definition of RNG does not establish whether RNG under the GGRR includes RNG from BC and outside of BC. Instead, the BCUC, by accepting RNG purchase contracts that FortisBC Energy Inc. had signed with out-of-BC producers, had legally established that under the GGRR RNG means RNG from inside and outside of BC.

The BCUC’s decision effectively acknowledged what BCSEA had argued: that out-of-province RNG is acceptable under the GGRR, and the BCUC has no authority to change that. Also in line with BCSEA’s argument, the BCUC concluded that its current system is adequate for overseeing the reporting on RNG acquisitions and the claims of GHG emissions reductions.