The brains of British Columbia's vast electricity transmission grid is a row of two-metre-high computer racks in a high-tech, ultra-secure facility in the Fraser Valley. This is the guts of the new grid control centre that BC Transmission Corp. is entrusting to ensure smooth and steady delivery of power in the coming decades to 1.7 million BC Hydro customers, their hospitals, schools, businesses, industries, streetlights, and homes.-----------------
That's just half the story. "We do have another facility almost like this one in the Okanagan. If something [catastrophic] happened in the Lower Mainland, we could operate the grid from the Okanagan with a very minimal staff," says Huang, the on-site boss of this 150-person operation. Like the Fraser Valley facility, the one in the Okanagan has two giant batteries and two diesel generators as backup.Taxpayers take note. This control centre, and the one in the Okanagan, were built on time and on budget for a total of $130 million.
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Don Quixote note: The reason I posted this portion of the story is to show the budget for these 2 buildings, (1 in Langley and the backup building in Vernon). They apparently came in on budget for about $130 million. However the assessment for this building in Vernon appears to have come in at around $18 million well below the 21.7 million declared building permit value. This is a large difference between budget and assessment. Will Vernon appeal the assessment ?
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