September 12, 2025 Sent via email
Re:
Sara Hardgrave Acting Commission Secretary
Commission.Secretary@bcuc.com bcuc.com
Suite 410, 900 Howe Street Vancouver, BC Canada V6Z 2N3 P: 604.660.4700 TF: 1.800.663.1385
Letter L-26-25
Bluestem Multi-Utility Services ULC – The Rise – Complaint filed by B.D. – British Columbia Utilities Commission Decision
Dear : The British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) writes with respect to your complaint filed on January 27, 2025 (Complaint), regarding the buy-out fee quoted to you by Bluestem Multi-Utility Services ULC (BMUS) for the purchase of the loop field system (LFS) installed at your premises located at The Rise development in Vernon, British Columbia. Upon inquiring about the current buy-out fee for your LFS, you received a quote from BMUS for (LFS Purchase Price). You allege that there was a lack of transparency regarding how the LFS Purchase Price was calculated, and that the quoted amount is inconsistent with previous communications from BMUS and Corix, who originally installed the LFS and later merged with SouthWest Water and became “Bluestem Utilities”. BMUS submits, among other things, that the LFS fits the criteria of a Micro thermal energy system (TES), which should inform the scope of the BCUC’s review of the Complaint.
The BCUC initiated the complaints process on January 27, 2025, following receipt of the Complaint. Each party filed additional correspondence with the BCUC between January 30 and April 21, 2025.
Review Process The BCUC is an independent regulatory agency of the Provincial Government that operates under and administers the Utilities Commission Act (UCA). Pursuant to the BCUC Customer Complaints Guidelines, the BCUC must first determine if a complaint falls within the BCUC’s jurisdiction before reviewing it.
For TES such as your LFS, the BCUC’s regulatory jurisdiction is described in the Thermal Energy System Guidelines (TES Guidelines). 1 The BCUC performs several functions as the regulator of TES providers, including (but not limited to) overseeing the operation of a TES, including the reliability and safety of a TES, and hearing complaints regarding a TES provider. The BCUC has organized TES into categories known as Strata TES, Micro TES, Fixed-Scale TES, and District TES based on criteria including the cost and scope of the TES, and exempted certain categories of TES from aspects of the BCUC’s regulatory oversight. Specifically, Micro TES providers are exempt from all of Part 3 of the UCA, with certain exceptions. 2
1 Issued by Order G-48-25. The TES Guidelines are available at: https://docs.bcuc.com/documents/Guidelines/TES-Guidelines.pdf 2 See Order G-46-25, which exempts Micro TES from Part 3 of the UCA, except for sections 23, 25, 38, and 41 to 44.
File 015832 – BMUS – Complaint filed by B.D. – BCUC Decision
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The BCUC issued the most recent version of the TES Guidelines on February 26, 2025, which included new eligibility criteria for the Micro TES exemption. 3 However, TES that were in-service prior to February 26, 2025, and that have a capital cost less than $500,000 are considered to be “Legacy Micro TES”, reflecting the eligibility criteria for Micro TES established by the prior version of the TES Guidelines. The Micro TES exemption also applies to Legacy Micro TES providers. 4
Micro TES providers are exempt from active regulation by the BCUC for the specific TES. Therefore, a Micro TES provider does not need to seek BCUC approval to construct the Micro TES and does not need to seek BCUC approval for the rates charged to its customer(s).
Complaints may be filed with the BCUC regarding Micro TES providers, 5 including about matters related to safety and reliability and certain matters related to rates and terms of service. The scope of rate-related complaints is limited to:
•
•
Accordance with regulatory requirements: The rates, rate adjustment method (as applicable) and/or terms of service were not disclosed in the long-term service agreement for the term of the agreement and/or the long-term service does not meet the minimum requirements established by these guidelines.
Accordance with long-term service agreement: The rates charged and/or the terms of service do not conform to the long-term service agreement between the Micro TES Provider and the TES customer.
The BCUC will not consider the propriety of rates so long as the Micro TES provider is charging rates that are in accordance with the long-term service agreement.
Party Submissions In your Complaint, you provided past buyout quotes that appear to indicate that other residents of The Rise have been offered the opportunity to purchase their LFS for lower purchase prices than the price offered to you, despite their systems being the same size, and in service for a shorter period of time than yours. In addition, you provided a letter from a representative of Corix to residents of The Rise in 2009 that appeared to indicate that Corix may have been using a different calculation methodology to determine the purchase price for other LFS. Specifically, the letter indicates that the LFS buyout cost would decline to approximately . You allege that this is inconsistent with your quoted buyout amount of your LFS being in service for over
On February 4, 2025, the BCUC requested further information from BMUS regarding the characteristics of the LFS in order to determine the appropriate categorization of your LFS within the TES Guidelines. In response, BMUS provided the following information on February 24, 2025:
• •
Each LFS was installed between The systems range from cost between and
to depending on the size.
. and have an average capital
3 Order G-48-25. 4 TES Guidelines, section 2.1. 5 Including with respect to Legacy Micro TES – see the TES Guidelines, section 2.1.
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Purchase Price calculation methodology is outside of the scope of the BCUC’s review. Based on the BCUC’s review of the Complaint and the further information and correspondence provided by you and BMUS, the BCUC finds that BMUS has acted in conformance with its long-term service agreement. We note that Section 22 of the terms and conditions of the long-term service agreement indicates that both components of the LFS Purchase Price formula are “as determined by the Company [BMUS] in its sole discretion”. As such, the BCUC considers that BMUS acted in accordance with its service agreement in its determination of the amounts that were used to calculate the quoted LFS Purchase Price for your LFS. In particular, regardless of the LFS Purchase Price amounts that were previously applied to other customers in the past, the BCUC finds that BMUS was entitled to determine the components of the LFS Purchase Price for your LFS in its sole discretion. The Panel also notes that BMUS has provided an explanation for the calculation of the LFS Purchase Price that it has provided to you.
Further, the BCUC highlights Section 29 of the terms and conditions, which states that “No employee contractor or agent of the Company [BMUS] has authority to make any promise, agreement or representation not incorporated in these terms and conditions or in a Service Agreement, and any such unauthorized promise, agreement or representation is not binding on the Company”. As such, the BCUC finds that BMUS is not bound by the 2009 communication provided by a Corix representative regarding the calculation of the LFS Purchase Price.
Accordingly, the Complaint is dismissed, and your file is now closed. Office of the Ombudsperson If you have concerns about how the BCUC handled your Complaint, you may wish to contact the Office of the Ombudsperson. The Office of the Ombudsperson receives enquiries and complaints about the practices and services of public agencies within its jurisdiction. Their role is to impartially investigate complaints to determine whether public agencies have acted fairly and reasonably, and whether their actions and decisions were consistent with relevant legislation, policies and procedures.
If you decide to file a complaint with the Ombudsperson, they will review the BCUC’s process to ensure it was fair. Though this may not result in a different outcome for you, the office could request that the BCUC reopen its investigation.
Provided is a link to the Office of the Ombudsperson’s website: https://www.bcombudsperson.ca. Sincerely, Electronically signed by Sara Hardgrave Sara Hardgrave Acting Commission Secretary
DS/jm cc:
BMUS Regulatory Affairs Reg.Affairs@nexuswg.com
Nonye.Ogun@nexuswg.com Darrin.Stephanson@nexuswg.com
File 015832 – BMUS – Complaint filed by B.D. – BCUC Decision
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