Get Your Wind and Ocean Wave Data Here

If information drives progress, then we ought to expect an increase in offshore wind and wave projects in British Columbia, now that BC Hydro is making data on wind and ocean wave energy that it collected through its monitoring program available to interested parties as described in Data Backs Wind and Ocean Wave Energy , Solar Access (8/5/03). BC Hydro's Vice President is more than willing to share the information

"BC Hydro has accumulated valuable data at a number of locations in British Columbia that we are eager to share with interested parties," said BC Hydro's Senior Vice-President, Distribution, Bev Van Ruyven. "This will further enable private sector wind and wave energy development in B.C. and help these projects compete in our future commercial calls for new electricity supply."

It seems unusual for a utility to actually want to give information away - perhaps there is a hope that by making the data available, developers can use it to develop offshore wind and wave projects and sell power to BC Hydro to enable it to diversity its portfolio.