HR: 09:00h
AN: H21H-05    [Abstracts]
TI: Overview of Hydrometeorologic Forecasting Procedures at BC Hydro
AU: * McCollor, D
EM: doug.mccollor@bchydro.bc.ca
AF: Senior Meteorologist, BC Hydro, 6911 Southpoint Drive, Burnaby, BC V3N 4X8 Canada
AB: Energy utility companies must balance production from limited sources with increasing demand from industrial, business, and residential consumers. The utility planning process requires a balanced, efficient, and effective distribution of energy from source to consumer. Therefore utility planners must consider the impact of weather on energy production and consumption. Hydro-electric companies should be particularly tuned to weather because their source of energy is water, and water supply depends on precipitation. BC Hydro operates as the largest hydro-electric company in western Canada, managing over 30 reservoirs within the province of British Columbia, and generating electricity for 1.6 million people. BC Hydro relies on weather forecasts of watershed precipitation and temperature to drive hydrologic reservoir inflow models and of urban temperatures to meet energy demand requirements. Operations and planning specialists in the company rely on current, value-added weather forecasts for extreme high-inflow events, daily reservoir operations planning, and long-term water resource management. Weather plays a dominant role for BC Hydro financial planners in terms of sensitive economic responses. For example, a two percent change in hydropower generation, due in large part to annual precipitation patterns, results in an annual net change of \$50 million in earnings. A five percent change in temperature produces a \$5 million change in yearly earnings. On a daily basis, significant precipitation events or temperature extremes involve potential profit/loss decisions in the tens of thousands of dollars worth of power generation. These factors are in addition to environmental and societal costs that must be considered equally as part of a triple bottom line reporting structure. BC Hydro water resource managers require improved meteorological information from recent advancements in numerical weather prediction. At BC Hydro, methods of providing meteorological forecast data are changing as new downscaling and ensemble techniques evolve to improve environmental information supplied to water managers.
DE: 1800 HYDROLOGY
DE: 1854 Precipitation (3354)
DE: 1860 Runoff and streamflow
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting