Conservation Initiatives at BC Hydro

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Inside Mica Dam's main powerhouse.

BC Hydro's Lead by Example department was formed to lead our internal effort to create, foster and maintain a culture of energy efficiency and conservation within the organization.

According to David Procter, Manager of Lead by Example: "Culture change through employee engagement programs, identification and implementation of hardwire projects, and ensuring strategic priorities and policies incent and facilitate conservation efforts, all work together to support and maximize conservation gains in our company."

Internal surveys have shown that over 90% of BC Hydro employees are passionate about conservation and feel that it should be a high corporate priority. Building on this value, Lead by Example supports employee teams throughout the organization that focus on energy efficiency, zero waste and sustainable transportation goals. From flicking off the lights to teleconferencing, these actions spark proposals to integrate conservation into all aspects of the job and on a broad scale.

Don Fulcher, a Field Manager in Duncan who has been a Lineman and avid conservationist for 30 years, realized there are much more sustainable ways of distributing water than single-serve bottled water bottles that create mountains of waste. Using his philosophy of "best welfare practices" he has put forward a business case for alternative methods of distributing water to Field Operations staff that would also save the company an estimated $300,000 per year.

Culture change often sparks policy change. Building a culture of conservation where people turn off their lights and computers when they're not in use has led to a greater awareness of the energy consumption represented by thousands of employees. The culture of energy conservation has inspired our current policies such as "Greening IT" and the server virtualization that has saved BC Hydro over 1 GWh; the switch to LCD monitors and laptops that use half the energy of CRT monitors; and Faronics Power Management Software that will automatically send computers into "deep sleep" mode after 15 minutes of inactivity. Office retrofits now include "ergolights," where everyone has control over their workstation light, choosing not to use it if they have lots of natural light, dimming it, and turning it off at the end of the day. Ergolights also assist employees in turning off lights, as the motion sensors automatically turn off lights when the workstation is not occupied.

Big energy efficiency savings have been identified by Lead by Example in over 14 hard wire projects that can yield nearly 8 GWh of savings for BC Hydro. The first of these projects to be completed is the lighting retrofit at Mica. This project is replacing over 2,000 lights with state-of-the-art technology that will save 2 GWh per year – enough to serve approximately 182 households.

Lindsay Thompson, the Project Manager on Mica, is enthusiastic about how much learning this project can offer to other BC Hydro projects and to our customers because "the Mica project showcases lighting upgrades and energy efficient technology for so many different types of environments: from office space and conference rooms, to draft tube and transformer galleries, to lighting fixtures in miles of rock portal tunnels that serve as hallways for the Mica generating station which is built deep into the mountain."

Through these various initiatives, BC Hydro is Leading by Example to usher in a more sustainable future.

"The key is that people like you and me will drive our biggest results and that all of us can make a difference by applying conservation thinking and actions into every aspect of our jobs," said Bev Van Ruyven, Executive Vice-President of Customer Care and Conservation, BC Hydro.