Revenue requirements

How BC Hydro is regulated

BC Hydro is regulated by the B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC). Under the Utilities Commission Act, the BCUC is responsible for ensuring that:

Customers receive safe, reliable and non-discriminatory energy services at fair rates from the utilities it regulates.
Shareholders of these utilities are afforded a reasonable opportunity to earn a fair return on their invested capital.
Competitive interests of B.C. businesses are not frustrated.

As part of its regulation by the BCUC, BC Hydro files periodic Revenue Requirements Applications seeking various approvals.

What's a Revenue Requirements Application?

An application includes various approvals sought by BC Hydro from the BCUC. In addition to a request for approval of rates, a Revenue Requirements Application may also include, but is not limited to:

Revisions to or requests for new regulatory accounts
The setting of depreciation rates
Approval of expenditure schedules such as for Demand Side Management expenditures, which include investments in customer conservation programs.

F2023-F2025 Revenue Requirements Application

In September 2021 BC Hydro filed a three-year Revenue Requirements Application for Fiscal 2023-2025 with the BCUC, requesting an annual average bill increase of 1.1% for the next three years

Full documentation of the F2023-F2025 Revenue Requirements Application at bcuc.com

Factors and considerations in Revenue Requirements Applications

Revenue Requirements Applications must take into consideration a variety of factors, including:

Long-term forecasting that indicates B.C.’s growing population and a shift to electrification – switching from fossil fuel power to electricity – will require significantly more electricity over the next two decades.
Acquisition of additional clean energy to ensure we continue to meet the growing demand for electricity, as well as the sales of excess energy.
Ongoing operating costs.
System resilience against threats including more extreme weather caused by climate change, and cyberattacks.
Reinvestment in our existing hydroelectric power stations and other electricity generating assets, most of which were built in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
Investment in new power generation, including the Site C Clean Energy Project, a third dam and hydroelectric power station on the Peace River.

Revenue requirements

How BC Hydro is regulated

What's a Revenue Requirements Application?

F2023-F2025 Revenue Requirements Application

Factors and considerations in Revenue Requirements Applications

Earlier Revenue Requirements Applications

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