The British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, operating as BC Hydro, is a Canadian electric utility in the province of British Columbia. It is the main electricity distributor, serving more than 4 million customers in most areas, with the exception of the City of New Westminster, where the city runs its own electrical department and portions of the West Kootenay, Okanagan, the Boundary Country and Similkameen regions, where FortisBC, a subsidiary of Fortis Inc. directly provides electric service to 213,000 customers and supplies municipally owned utilities in the same area. As a provincial Crown corporation, BC Hydro reports to the BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, and is regulated by the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC). Its mandate is to generate, purchase, distribute and sell electricity.
Ontario Hydro, established in 1906 as the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, was a publicly owned electricity utility in the Province of Ontario. It was formed to build transmission lines to supply municipal utilities with electricity generated by private companies already operating at Niagara Falls, and soon developed its own generation resources by buying private generation stations and becoming a major designer and builder of new stations. As most of the readily developed hydroelectric sites became exploited, the corporation expanded into building coal-fired generation and then nuclear-powered facilities. Renamed as "Ontario Hydro" in 1974, by the 1990s it had become one of the largest, fully integrated electricity corporations in North America.
The Manitoba Hydro-Electric Board, operating as Manitoba Hydro, is the electric power and natural gas utility in the province of Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1961, it is a provincial Crown Corporation, governed by the Manitoba Hydro-Electric Board and the Manitoba Hydro Act. Today the company operates 16 interconnected generating stations. It has more than 527,000 electric power customers and more than 263,000 natural gas customers. Since most of the electrical energy is provided by hydroelectric power, the utility has low electricity rates. Stations in Northern Manitoba are connected by a HVDC system, the Nelson River Bipole, to customers in the south. The internal staff are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 998 while the outside workers are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2034.
The Quebec – New England Transmission is a long-distance high-voltage direct current (HVDC) line between Radisson, Quebec and Westford Road in Ayer, Massachusetts. As of 2012, it remains one of only two Multi-terminal HVDC systems in the world and is "the only multi-terminal bipole HVDC system in the world where three stations are interconnected and operate under a common master control system".
Hydro One Limited is an electricity transmission and distribution utility serving the Canadian province of Ontario. Hydro One traces its history to the early 20th century and the establishment of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. In October 1998, the provincial legislature passed the Energy Competition Act which restructured Ontario Hydro into separate entities responsible for electrical generation, transmission/delivery, and price management with a final goal of total privatization.
The electricity sector in Canada has played a significant role in the economic and political life of the country since the late 19th century. The sector is organized along provincial and territorial lines. In a majority of provinces, large government-owned integrated public utilities play a leading role in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. Ontario and Alberta have created electricity markets in the last decade to increase investment and competition in this sector of the economy.
A regional transmission organization (RTO) in the United States is an electric power transmission system operator (TSO) that coordinates, controls, and monitors a multi-state electric grid. The transfer of electricity between states is considered interstate commerce, and electric grids spanning multiple states are therefore regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The voluntary creation of RTOs was initiated by FERC in December 1999. The purpose of the RTO is to promote economic efficiency, reliability, and non-discriminatory practices while reducing government oversight.
The British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) is an independent agency of the Government of British Columbia responsible for regulating rates and standards of service quality. The Commission's primary responsibility is the regulation of British Columbia's natural gas and electricity utilities. They also regulate intra-provincial pipelines and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), a crown corporation responsible for insuring vehicles and operators in the province.
The Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited (TANESCO) is a Tanzanian parastatal organisation established in 1964. It is wholly owned by the government of Tanzania. The Ministry of Energy and Minerals regulates the operations of TANESCO.
Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) is an Indian public sector undertaking under the Government of Kerala that generates, transmits and distributes electricity in the state. Established in 1957, the agency comes under the authority of the Department of Power. It has been registered under Indian Companies Act 1956 in January 2011.
Canada has access to all main sources of energy including oil and gas, coal, hydropower, biomass, solar, geothermal, wind, marine and nuclear. It is the world's second largest producer of uranium, third largest producer of hydro-electricity, fourth largest natural gas producer, and the fifth largest producer of crude oil. In 2006, only Russia, the People's Republic of China, the United States and Saudi Arabia produce more total energy than Canada.
FortisBC is a British Columbia based regulated utility that provides natural gas and electricity. FortisBC has approximately 2,600 employees serving more than 1.2 million customers in 135 B.C. communities and 58 First Nations communities across 150 Traditional Territories.
ITC Holdings Corporation is an American energy company which owns and operates high-voltage electricity transmission networks. Headquartered in Novi, Michigan, ITC has operations in Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canadian energy company Fortis Inc.
An independent power producer (IPP) or non-utility generator (NUG) is an entity that is not a public utility but owns facilities to generate electric power for sale to utilities and end users. NUGs may be privately held facilities, corporations, cooperatives such as rural solar or wind energy producers, and non-energy industrial concerns capable of feeding excess energy into the system.
The Site C Dam is a hydroelectric dam currently under construction on the Peace River, 14 kilometers southwest of Fort St. John in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. It is located approximately 80 kilometers downstream from the W. A. C. Bennett Dam. When completed in 2025, it will become the fourth largest producer of hydroelectricity in British Columbia, with an expected capacity of 1,100 MW and an expected annual output of 4,600 GWh of electricity.
The United States has the second largest electricity sector in the world, with 4,178 Terawatt-hours of generation in 2023. In 2023 the industry earned $491b in revenue at an average price of $0.127/kWh.
The Juan de Fuca Cable Project is a proposed 550 MW, 150 kV high-voltage direct current (HVDC) submarine power cable connection running 19 miles (31 km) under the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Port Angeles, Washington, and Victoria, British Columbia. The project's final environmental impact statement was completed in October 2007, and a presidential permit issued in June 2008.
Independent power producer (IPP) projects have had a significant presence in British Columbia since the 1980s. Their relationship with BC Hydro grew from the province's need to supply growing energy demands and implementation of the 2002 Energy Strategy, which mandated that BC Hydro would purchase its energy supply from IPPs rather than generating the supply itself. There are a variety of power projects in BC, with the most popular being hydroelectricity and biomass projects. In recent years, more attention has been placed on the environmental effects of IPP projects and the social implications it has to residents living around the project development sites. Despite the decline in demand for new IPP projects, in 2016 they supplied 20,000 GWh, one-third of BC Hydro's total.
