VICTORIA – The nights are getting longer and cooler, and soon the smell of hot dust will herald the reawakening of the heating system in many B.C. homes.

If you have electric heat from BC Hydro, you’re already paying a 6.56 per cent rate interim increase that took effect in April, pending hearings and approval by utility regulators this October. If it’s approved, it includes another 8.21 per cent increase next year.

And customers may know as early as this week whether the B.C. Utilities Commission approves of BC Hydro’s plan to put in a two-tier rate structure, with a higher rate for residential consumption of more than 1,600 kilowatt hours on a two-month billing.

All this has caused similar complaints to those that greeted the carbon tax on natural gas and other fuels: it’s not fair for people who have big families, big homes and few options to conserve. Especially here on Vancouver Island, where gas heat wasn’t an option until relatively recently, electricity consumers are starting to gripe.

I spoke with BC Hydro president Bob Elton about this last week, and while he acknowledges there will be individual cases that deserve a break, electricity remains a good deal.

“The price of gas heat has gone up a lot more than our rate increases, even this year, and if you go back 20 years the price of gas has gone up by 160 per cent and the price of electricity in B.C. has gone up by 35 per cent,” Elton said. “If you happen to have electric heating, you’ve been doing well for a long time.”

As for the new “conservation rate” for home energy hogs, Hydro estimates that three quarters of residential customers will pay less than they would if rates were raised the same for everyone.

“And many people would argue that it’s fair,” Elton said, “because if you happen to have a big house and a hot tub and all the rest of it, and electricity is becoming increasingly expensive, it only makes sense that we make it more expensive for you rather than for other people.”

Home theatre systems and cranked-up hot tubs are starting to look like the Hummers of home improvement, in a province where the provincial government is directing a push to smaller, electrically heated construction. You can still have the luxuries, but be prepared to pay.

There has been a lot of attention paid to BC Hydro’s pursuit of more costly alternative energy sources such as small hydro, wind and bioenergy. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld hasn’t given it many options, having banned nuclear, effectively banned coal and additional gas-fired power, and also mandated an end to net imports of power.

The B.C. Liberal government is also directing a move to wood waste, requiring the utilities commission to consider regional economic development as well as cost to consumers. Bioenergy is more costly than land-based wind, but it can be produced on demand, and it’s considered green. The B.C. government is aiming to have the populous south help pay for wood energy projects where a post-beetle, post-old growth industrial strategy is sorely needed.

Elton says BC Hydro is developing a plan to give a break to lower-income people, but they will have to qualify. There will be application kits distributed at shopping malls, and eventually homes will be energy audited to see if they can cut consumption. By this time “smart meters” will be going in.

All in all, it’s an ambitious plan to re-engineer the B.C. economy.

Building rules change

New building code restrictions are in effect as of Sept. 5. Along with strict insulation and building envelope regulation for every new building in B.C., the code mandates “ultra-low-flow toilets” and other water saving fixtures for renovations as well as new construction.

New high-rises in B.C. now have to meet international standards for heating and air conditioning efficiency.