2010 Winter Games Features
Paralympic alpine ski champion Lauren Woolstencroft is on a leave of absence from her engineering job with BC Hydro to train for the 2010 Winter Games.
December 9, 2009
BC Hydro embraces role in low-carbon Games
Michelle Martin
For bchydro.com
The small snowball that would become BC Hydro’s games legacy began to roll down a Whistler-sized hill on July 2, 2003.
When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced Vancouver would host the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, BC Hydro employees knew something big was happening, but no one knew how big the snowball would grow to be.
Today, with the Games just around the corner, British Columbia is about to make history: We will hold the Games with the lowest carbon dioxide emissions from power generation in the history of the modern Games, at only about a tenth of previous Winter Games. It’s a legacy that will be showcased every time that lights go on in a stadium, a timing device captures a record and a broadcaster goes on the air, largely powered by clean, renewable hydroelectric energy.
At the heart of this legacy of stewardship and sustainability are the projects of hundreds of people across BC Hydro who have been working tirelessly in preparation for 2010. Some have been installing circuits, transformers and automatic transfer switches at venues to ensure the reliable flow of our hydroelectric power, while others have helped make the venues themselves energy efficient. Then there are those who have been out in the community building up excitement for conservation from the excitement that already exists for the Games.
Here's the story of BC Hydro’s Olympic legacy, told through the voices of some of its people.
Mike Terpstra, power line technician
A subforeman power line technician today, Mike Terpstra was a speed skater when he was young. But with his skates long stashed away, Mike got the call in 2007 to revisit his skating connection as leader of the BC Hydro team working on the Olympic speed skating Oval in Richmond, one of 17 Games venues energized by BC Hydro.
“I’ve always watched and taken pride in the Games, but it really has been something else to be part of making it happen, especially in this way,” says Terpstra. "My family is from Holland, the birthplace of speed skating, so I felt so incredibly fortunate to work on the Oval. It’s an experience I will never forget.”
During the Games, Mike will be one of about 70 BC Hydro field operations employees stationed at venues across the Lower Mainland. Their job is to ensure that the power keeps flowing uninterrupted.
Ann English, project director
At the hub of BC Hydro’s Olympic efforts and mass coordination is a team of about a dozen employees headed by 2010 Project Director Ann English.
“When we won the bid, I went with a small project team to Utah Power to see how they handled the Games at Salt Lake City in 2002," says English. "It was an eye-opener. They told us the value of becoming a sponsor and working with the local organizing committee, right from the start.”
The project team took this wisdom to heart and, in September 2007, earned BC Hydro the distinction of being an Official Supporter of the 2010 Winter Games. But while both the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) and BC Hydro had a mutual desire to hold the most sustainable Winter Games ever, there was some work to do.
So, early on, a few sustainability and technical staff from BC Hydro were seconded to VANOC and, before long, the planning process was whizzing along.
“Just like an athlete practises to be at peak performance, we’ve made sure our system will be working at peak performance,” she says. “It’s taken a lot of teamwork across the organization and with other agencies such as the British Columbia Transmission Corporation, the Province and VANOC.”
Bruce Douglas, infrastructure manager
Effectively Ann English's right-hand man, Bruce Douglas has never taken lightly BC Hydro's role in powering the Winter Games.
“It will be the equivalent of staging eight to 10 Super Bowls simultaneously for 17 days,” explains Douglas, manager of infrastructure for BC Hydro's 2010 project. “Our decisions have been based on achieving reliability and designing in contingencies in a cost-effective way that makes sense for generations.”
Of the 37 circuits that will provide power to Games venues, 20 are new.
“Many of the circuits we installed are in highload growth areas, such as False Creek and Coal Harbour," says Douglas. "So the circuits will be redeployed after the Games and, in turn, improve reliability in the downtown core. The legacy of revitalizing aging infrastructure is a fortunate spin-off.”
The design of the electricity system’s adaptations for the Games is impressive. All venues have two independent sources of power and the most critical loads at the venues, such as
broadcasting and timing equipment, have three — essentially redundancy on top of redundancy.
But unlike the Turin Games of 2006, where there were more than 600 diesel generators supplying this redundancy, the 2010 Winter Games will have aproximately 100 — and only for the most critical broadcasting and timing equipment. It is expected that most of these will be in cold standby mode - in other words seldom, if ever, used.
“It’s one of our most important legacy lessons moving forward, that you don’t always have to use a diesel generator to power a venue,” says Bruce.
Lauren Woolstencroft, Paralympic alpine skier
Perhaps no employee wears the role of ambassador as naturally as Lauren Woolstencroft. The gold-medal winning Paralympic skier - currently on a leave of absence from her job as BC Hydro engineer - will not only be a face of BC Hydro, but also of Canada as she competes in all five alpine skiing Paralympic events in March.
It’s a time when her already-significant athletic legacy will continue to evolve.
Michelle Martin is editor of the award-winning Plugged In newsletter for BC Hydro employees.
