What BC Hydro actually does (and why it isn't split in two like Alberta)
If you've moved to British Columbia from Alberta or Ontario, the first thing to know is that BC Hydro is a single utility, not a split distributor-and-retailer arrangement. It owns the dams, the long-distance transmission grid, the local distribution wires, the meter at your address and the customer contract. One company, one bill, one rate schedule approved by the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC). There is no separate retailer to choose.
The historical reason is that BC's electricity system was built around large publicly-owned hydroelectric projects on the Peace, Columbia and Bridge rivers. When other provinces unbundled their utilities and introduced retail competition in the late 1990s, BC kept the integrated Crown model and instead asked the BCUC to set rates and service standards transparently. The result is that residential rates are among the lowest in North America (about 9.5 to 14 ¢/kWh on the standard two-tier residential schedule) but you have no choice of supplier for the energy itself.
- Generates electricity (mostly from large hydro dams)
- Owns the wires, poles, transformers and meters
- Restores power after outages and reads your meter
- Bills you for the energy and the delivery on one statement
- ×No "switch retailer" decision to make for electricity
- ×No RRO, no commodity contracts, no fixed vs variable plans
- ×Rates are set by BCUC after public hearings
- ×The only way to a different utility is to live in another service area
Where BC Hydro delivers power
In plain words: if you live in British Columbia and you're not in the FortisBC Southern Interior service area or one of five municipal utility territories (Penticton, Summerland, Nelson, New Westminster, Grand Forks), then BC Hydro is your provider. That covers about 95 % of the province by population: all of the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, the North, and most of the Interior.
- •Lower Mainland: Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby, Richmond, Coquitlam, Langley, Delta, Maple Ridge
- •Vancouver Island: Victoria, Saanich, Nanaimo, Courtenay, Campbell River
- •Interior: Kamloops, Kelowna (except FortisBC area), Prince George, Chilliwack, Abbotsford
- •North: Fort St. John, Dawson Creek, Smithers, Terrace, Prince Rupert
- •South Okanagan, Boundary & West Kootenay → FortisBC Electric
- •Penticton → City of Penticton
- •Summerland, Nelson, Grand Forks, New Westminster → their own municipal utilities
- •Sonoma Pines (West Kelowna), Sun Rivers (Kamloops) → private community utilities
Not in BC Hydro's territory? Pick your distributor
Kelowna, Trail, Castlegar, Rossland, the South Okanagan and Kootenays
City of Penticton in the South Okanagan
City of Nelson + the rural service area in the West Kootenays
Not sure which one? Check the top of your most recent electricity bill: the utility name is printed alongside your account number.
How BC Hydro's residential rates work
Because BC Hydro is integrated (generation, transmission, distribution and retail under one roof), your monthly bill is much simpler than in Alberta. There is no separate "delivery" half to compare against the commodity. Instead, BCUC-approved rate schedules combine everything into a single per-kWh price that depends on how much you use, plus a small fixed daily basic charge. The schedule everyone defaults to is Rate Schedule 1101: Residential Conservation Rate.
A fixed amount per day (around 21¢ at the time of writing), regardless of consumption. Covers metering, billing infrastructure and customer support. Adds up to roughly $13 over a 60-day billing cycle.
Applies to the first 1,332 kWh of consumption in a two-month billing cycle (roughly the average household's baseline usage). A relatively low per-kWh rate, indexed annually.
A higher per-kWh rate on every kWh above the Step 1 threshold. Designed to nudge heavier consumers toward conservation and to recover marginal generation cost.
Small temporary adjustments (positive or negative) that true-up past forecasts or recover specific approved capital costs. The deferral-account rider has been the headline rider in recent years.
A regulated franchise-style charge that some municipalities add as a percentage of the electricity portion of the bill. Goes to the municipality, not BC Hydro.
Federal GST (5 %) and the BC Provincial Sales Tax on residential electricity (currently 0 % under the residential exemption). Applied at the bottom of the statement.
Rate Schedule 1101 has been in place since 2008, when BC Hydro switched from a single flat residential rate to the two-step inclining block. The threshold is set at roughly the median household's bi-monthly consumption so that about half of customers stay entirely in Step 1. Heat pumps, electric vehicles, large pools and electric heat in a poorly insulated home are the four most common reasons households tip into Step 2 territory month after month.
BCUC publishes every approved rate change on its public registry and runs a public hearing each time BC Hydro files a revenue requirement application. Submissions from intervenor groups (BC Old Age Pensioners, the Commercial Energy Consumers Association, the BC Sustainable Energy Association and others) shape the final decision. The current rate schedule is on the BC Hydro rates page.
Contact details: emergency line first
Outages, downed wires, anything dangerous. For a downed live line, call 911 first.
Monday to Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (closed Sundays and statutory holidays)
For non-urgent questions you can also use BC Hydro's online channels: the live outage map, the corporate site, the MyHydro online account portal, or text the keyword "OUT" to 74633 (POWER) from your registered mobile number to report or check an outage at your address.
Report a power outage
If your power is out, the fastest path is to call 1-888-769-3766, report it on the online outage form, or text "OUT" to 74633 from your account-linked mobile. The dispatcher logs the address, cross-references it with field telemetry, and assigns a crew if the cause isn't already identified.
Call 1-888-769-3766, use the online form, or text OUT to 74633. Have your address + account number ready.
The system pinpoints which substation or feeder is affected and assigns a crew or pole patrol.
Estimated restoration time appears on the live outage map. Urban faults: minutes to a few hours. Remote / storm-wide: longer, often via helicopter patrol.
Power is verified at the meter. Reset clocks, check freezer, and report any damage right away via the Customer Damage Claim form.
BC Hydro publishes its reliability performance to BCUC each year. The two headline metrics are SAIDI (average minutes a customer was off per year) and SAIFI (average number of outages per customer per year). BC's mountainous terrain, exposure to Pacific storms and long rural feeders mean SAIDI is typically several hours per year on average, but much higher in storm seasons. Vancouver Island in particular is exposed to autumn wind events that take down trees onto overhead lines.
Planned outages for maintenance are normally posted 48 to 72 hours in advance by direct notification (letter or postcard) to affected addresses and on the outage map. If you depend on medical equipment, register that under MyHydro so you receive priority notification before planned work.
New connection or service upgrade
For a new build, a service upgrade (e.g. moving from 100 A to 200 A to support an EV charger and a heat pump), a temporary construction service, or any work that requires changes to the physical wires or meter, you deal with BC Hydro. Start at bchydro.com or call 1-800-224-9376.
The civic address and the legal land description (lot, plan, district lot) for rural sites.
A sketch showing where you want the meter, the service entrance and the run-back to the pole or pad-mounted transformer.
The amperage (100 A, 200 A, 400 A…) and voltage you need, with a load calculation signed off by your electrician.
Municipal building permit and a Technical Safety BC electrical permit, with a sign-off by a licensed electrical contractor once the in-house wiring is done.
Standard urban residential. Rural or remote sites with new poles can take 4 to 9 months.
Service charge + per-metre extension above the contribution threshold.
Once the wires are in and BC Hydro has energised the service, your billing account opens automatically under Rate Schedule 1101. There's no separate retailer to sign up with: BC Hydro handles the connection, the meter and the bill.
Moving home, transferring or closing a service
In BC, the move-in / move-out conversation is a single call (or a single online form) to BC Hydro. There's no second retailer to coordinate with. Most moves can be set up online through MyHydro at bchydro.com with at least 2 business days' notice. Five days is safer for end-of-month moves.
Online through MyHydro or by phone. Give them the move date, the old address and the new one.
2 business days minimum; allow 5 for month-end moves. Same-day disconnections are rare.
On the move-out date, BC Hydro records the final reading remotely from the smart meter.
BC Hydro issues a closing bill for the period up to the move-out date. The new address bill starts separately under MyHydro.
Administrative transfer only. No physical work, no service interruption. MyHydro can handle the whole move online; you keep the same account number.
Opening a fresh account is required. If you're moving into FortisBC Electric or a municipal utility area, sign up directly with that utility — BC Hydro can't roll the contract across.
Meters, meter reading and accuracy
BC Hydro completed a province-wide smart meter rollout under the Smart Metering and Infrastructure Program (2011 to 2014). Almost every residential address now has an AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) meter that reports consumption back to BC Hydro automatically, with no need for in-person reads and no estimated bills.
Most residential addresses. Consumption reports back to BC Hydro on its own; you can see hourly use in MyHydro.
BC Hydro pulls the meter and tests it on a calibrated bench against Measurement Canada's tolerance.
A small minority of customers opted out of smart meter radio transmission. A monthly fee applies and a meter reader visits to take the reading manually.
If the meter reads outside Measurement Canada's tolerance (typically ±2 %), the test is free and you get a billing adjustment. If it passes, the test fee is charged to you at the BCUC-approved tariff rate.
What do you need to do with BC Hydro?
Pick an action. The tool shows the right phone, the right link, and what to expect. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Note: under AUC Rule 002, Alberta distributors are not required to pay automatic compensation for outages. Damage claims are evaluated case-by-case on negligence.
Compensation and damage claims: the honest version
This is the section where European-style explainers tend to mislead. British Columbia has no automatic, statutory compensation scheme for individual customers affected by a power outage. Unlike the UK's Ofgem Guaranteed Standards (which pay an automatic amount after defined outage durations), BCUC oversight of BC Hydro focuses on reliability reporting (SAIDI, SAIFI) and on rate-design fairness. The penalty for under-performance flows from the regulator into the next rate case, not from the distributor to you.
If your fridge or freezer contents spoiled, an appliance was damaged by a voltage surge, or you incurred a clear loss during an outage, you can file a Customer Damage Claim with BC Hydro. The claim is evaluated on negligence.
- +Equipment failure (transformer, switch, cable)
- +Crew error during work on the network
- +Switching incident causing voltage spike
- +Unplanned, distributor-caused service interruption
- ×Severe weather (wind, ice, atmospheric rivers)
- ×Wildlife contact (squirrels, birds, raccoons on lines)
- ×Third-party contact (vehicle hits pole, dig-in)
- ×Planned outages notified in advance
Most BC home insurance policies cover food spoilage and surge damage at a low deductible. If your loss is meaningful, the insurance route is usually faster than a denied utility claim. Keep dated receipts and photos either way. They're the only basis on which a claim can be evaluated.
Regulator and complaint escalation
If you can't resolve something directly with BC Hydro, there's a clear escalation ladder in BC. The lead regulator is the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC). For some disputes you may also want to involve the Office of the BC Ombudsperson (for procedural fairness questions about a Crown corporation) or the Information and Privacy Commissioner (for data and access-to-information issues).
Sets the rates, reviews revenue requirement applications, approves major capital projects, oversees reliability reporting and accepts customer complaints. Public proceedings, full document registry.
Free, independent oversight of provincial public bodies including Crown corporations like BC Hydro. Looks at procedural fairness and reasonableness when other escalation paths haven't resolved an issue.
Most issues resolve here. Call 1-800-224-9376 or log into MyHydro.
If the front line can't fix it, request a written decision from BC Hydro's Customer Relations group. This creates the paper trail needed for the next step.
BCUC accepts customer complaints once you've exhausted BC Hydro's internal process. Free, written submission via the BCUC complaint form.
Last resort. The BC Ombudsperson can review procedural fairness. Court is rare for residential disputes but available for large damage claims.