‘Get with the times, Hydro’

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/09/2011 (5145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Hydro is old-school.

So old-school that it’s failing to cash in on the global green energy market and stifled by 50-year-old legislation.

That’s what the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce will say this morning in its latest campaign-related salvo. The chamber hopes to spark a real debate over the Crown power company’s role in the province’s economy, a debate that goes a little deeper than the standard bickering over privatization and the Bipole.

“We need to talk about how we can leverage Hydro by changing it into a competitive energy company, not just a dam builder,” said chamber president Dave Angus. “Hydro should be much bigger than it currently is, and could be.”

Manitoba Hydro has made an unusual cameo appearance in the provincial election so far, but not necessarily a productive one.

Hydro is the province’s single biggest asset, generating $2 billion in revenue last year, $400 million of that from American customers. It’s kept power rates rock bottom, a selling feature for a province that doesn’t have many. And, love it or hate it, Hydro is stable and well-managed.

But Manitoba has more power resources than just water.

The province has some of the best wind on the continent, easy-to-get geothermal, plenty of sun, biomass from old crops and methane from dumps. But those are all more expensive forms of power right now than what a 40-year-old, mortgage-free northern dam can produce. There are only two medium-sized wind farms in Manitoba, while plans for 80 more languish. Solar power is barely on the radar.

To fend off alternative energy projects, Hydro has unapologetically used its price advantage and its mandate to provide Manitobans the cheapest power possible, says Angus.

Others — from former cabinet ministers like Tim Sale to academics to environmental activists — familiar with Hydro say its corporate culture balks when the government pushes it to do more. And the NDP is so sensitive to accusations of meddling in a Crown power company that it won’t drop the hammer.

Instead, it allows the Public Utilities Board to do the heavy lifting when it comes to oversight. It’s the PUB, not the NDP, that raises red flags about Hydro’s capital spending, scolds the company for being too secretive and pushes it to do better on energy conservation. Now, the NDP has promised voters a special rate-stabilization fund to offset any big rate increases, instead of simply ordering Hydro to keep rates the lowest in North America as a matter of policy.

That doesn’t stop the Tories from accusing their rivals of meddling anyway, saying Premier Greg Selinger’s party forced the company to build the new Bipole power line down the longer, pricier west side of the province.

The Tories would do their own kind of meddling if they get elected Oct. 4. They would force Hydro to abandon four years of work on the west side route and start fresh on the east side.

Alas, it turns out the real question that underpins any election debate over Hydro is one no party apparently wants to touch: What’s the point of having a Crown power company if it can’t be used as a tool of public policy for the good of all Manitobans?

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Angus says use it. He sees Hydro at the core of an international green energy powerhouse.

That means more wind companies like Winnipeg’s Sequoia Energy, a geothermal industry to rival Iceland’s, maybe a turbine plant like the one Mitsubishi once wanted to build in Manitoba. All that green power could be channeled through Hydro and sold into the U.S or Ontario, creating jobs, building wealth and boosting Manitoba Hydro’s profits.

That in turn would allow the province to take a an annual dividend like Quebec and British Columbia do with their hydro companies. The cash could fund tax cuts, better health care or any other one of the province’s priorities.

But that’s not the debate politicians are having, at least not yet. Instead, the focus remains on Bipole and privatization.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca