BC Hydro files plan to meet reduced rate expectations
By Contributor
BC Hydro’s plan to reduce the rate increases it is seeking from customers over the next three years will involve 700 job cuts and depends on improved electricity markets to deliver higher revenue from its trading division, the utility revealed Thursday, the Vancouver Province’s Derrick Penner reports.
The utility filed its amended application for rate increases with the B.C. Utilities Commission, which accommodates demands of the provincial government’s review of its operations that it rein in its proposed increases to 17 per cent over three years from the 32 per cent it sought with its initial rate application in March.
To get there, the review said BC Hydro needed to reduce its costs covered by customer rates by $800 million over three years, and the amended application represents the corporation’s plan to meet the goal, including the 700 job cuts.
BC Hydro chief financial officer Charles Reid, in an interview, said some 250 of the cuts had already been made through the 2008 reintegration of the B.C. Transmission Corp.’s operations back into the utility, some 300 more were announced in October and the balance will be made over the next couple of years.
