Fortis BC is announcing a new eco-friendly program for residents of the Sunshine Coast, Vancouver Island and Whistler. The company, which provides the province with natural gas as an alternative to electrical power source, is introducing biogas: a type of natural gas with no carbon footprint.
Already available on the Mainland, biogas is derived from urban waste.
“Biogas is naturally created when organic materials decay,” said Grace Pickell, Fortis BC communications advisor. “So that’s things like landfill waste and agricultural waste. Our renewable natural gas suppliers take advantage of this by capturing the biogas.”
The biogas is then purified and injected into the Fortis BC system, then mixes with the regular natural gas. Biogas is substantially more expensive than its natural gas equivalent, but that’s mostly due to the scale of production of biogas.
“It does cost more to produce, because it’s produced on such a smaller scale, but that extra cash does go pretty much back to our suppliers. So it’s a good thing for B.C.’s economy,” Pickell said.
Fortis BC estimates that a single family household’s energy bill is around $640 per year using regular natural gas, and $1,670 using electricity, for families on Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast.
Switching to 100 per cent biogas would cost around $1,170 a year, but there is another option. Since biogas is a form of natural gas, a household can choose to supplement their energy usage by integrating biogas into their natural gas system.
This works because both gases use the same fixtures and come from the same facility. Other than a spike in your energy bill and the satisfaction of being greener than your neighbours, the integration wouldn’t change anything.
Since it launched in 2011, the biogas program has sold more than 225,000 gigajoules of energy. According to Fortis BC, that’s roughly the equivalent of taking 2,500 cars off the road.
