Standing Offer Program

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Program overview

As directed by the provincial government in its BC Energy Plan: A Vision for Clean Energy Leadership, BC Hydro is implementing a Standing Offer Program to encourage the development of small and clean energy projects throughout British Columbia. The program is a process to purchase energy from small projects with a nameplate capacity greater than 0.05 megawatts but not more than 10 megawatts*.

Through a series of informal stakeholder engagement sessions and written comments, we received extensive feedback from stakeholders about previous calls for power and the design of the Standing Offer Program. As a result, the Program has been designed to:

• Simplify the process, the contract and its administration.
• Decrease the costs of participation for developers while remaining cost-effective for the ratepayer.
• Meet the need identified by the BC Energy Plan and embody its policies and principles.

The Standing Offer Program Rules [PDF, 313 Kb] explain Program details including eligibility requirements, the application process and the Standard Form Electricity Purchase Agreement (EPA) [PDF, 249 Kb] terms.

*Projects with capacity of no more than 0.05 megawatts may be eligible for BC Hydro's Net Metering program. Projects with capacity greater than 10 megawatts may be eligible to participate in the Clean Power Call or the Bioenergy Call for Power .

Information sessions

Subsequent to the launch of the Standing Offer Program on April 11, 2008, BC Hydro held five information sessions in Vancouver, Nanaimo, Cranbrook, Prince George, and Kamloops to review the Program Rules and the application process. These sessions were intended for developers that are ready or are planning to submit an application.

The presentation used for these sessions is available on our Workshops and Presentations page.

Who can apply

To be eligible to apply for the Standing Offer Program, the developer and the project must meet a number of requirements. Find out who can apply for the Standing Offer Program.

How to apply

In addition to the Application Form, the developer must submit several Exhibits. Find out how to apply for the Standing Offer Program.

Application review process

Several steps are required in the review of an application from the time it is received to the EPA offer and acceptance stage. Find out what to expect when submitting a Standing Offer Program application.

Documents

All documents relevant to the Standing Offer Program can be found on the Documents page.

FAQs

For answers to common questions on the Standing Offer Program, we invite you to review our Frequently Asked Questions page.

Inquiries and updates

Please email us if you have a question on the Standing Offer Program or would like to be added to our mailing list and be notified when additional information is posted on this website.