Whereas all of our communities rely on a safe, stable, and reliable electrical power grid; And whereas we are seeing and experiencing an increase in violent storms that bring down trees and branches on power lines, interrupting power supply and frequently travel: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM lobby the provincial government to ensure that utility companies have the mandate and resources to effectively manage vegetation along power lines to ensure a safe, stable and reliable electrical power supply.
Ministry of Energy Mines Low Carbon Innovation Since 2007, the United States and other Canadian provinces have enacted legislation to adopt mandatory and enforceable reliability standards for the interconnected electricity grid. Mandatory reliability standards MRS are one of the key recommendations resulting from the 2003 blackout in north-eastern North America. British Columbia adopted MRS in 2009 with an amendment to the Utilities Commission Act UCA that gave the British Columbia Utilities Commission BCUC jurisdiction to adopt reliability standards for application in BC. Vegetation management is included as part of MRS. Utilities and other transmission line operators are required to manage vegetation located on transmission rights of way ROW and minimize encroachments from vegetation located adjacent to the ROW to ensure reliability. BC Hydro, FortisBC and other transmission owners are subject to the BCUC s oversight of MRS. More than half of all power outages in BC are caused by trees and adverse weather. Tall, diseased, or flawed trees can fall or grow into power lines and are a safety hazard. BC Hydro spends more than 50 million each year on vegetation maintenance to prevent outages along 79,000 kilometres of overhead power lines. In its 2022 Revenue Requirements Application to the BC Utilities Commission, BC Hydro has requested additional operational funding of 25 million for vegetation management, bringing the total budget to 74.4 million. BC Hydros vegetation management team regularly inspects trees and other tall vegetation growing under or adjacent to transmission and distribution power lines to identify potential problems. Minimizing service interruptions and the duration of outages are performance measures tracked by BC Hydro as part of its annual service plan. BC Hydro is currently in the process of finalizing long term contracts, of two to seven years, for distribution voltage vegetation maintenance across the province. The successful vegetation management contractors will be assigned work in their contract areas throughout the year. A dedicated contractor working in the region throughout the year will result in quicker response times for customer and emergency work and during storm events, when vegetation crews are required. The northern interior region of the province will have five separate contract areas. The Cariboo region 70 Mile House, 100 Mile House, Williams Lake, west to Bella Coola is one of the contract areas that will be assigned a distribution vegetation management contractor.