BC Hydro is making change to many of its copper wires

Copper theft costs companies millions a year and is a hassle for many customers. So BC Hydro and Telus are making changes to prevent that.

Hydro is planning to eventually replace all copper grounding cables with a mulitmetal which isn't so valuable for thieves. In fact, it's worth nothing to scrap dealers.

Shawn Hall with Telus says they have been replacing copper wires with fibreoptics for a while now. "We've been engaged in a multi-year project of rolling out fiberoptic cable to bring customers optic TV and Internet. It has the happy benefit of being worthless on the scrap market because it's made out of plastic and glass."

But it hasn't stopped thieves, "It hasn't driven down the number of thefts but it's driven down the impact of those thefts where a few years ago some metal theft would have affected five to six hundred customers. Now it's typically fewer than 100 on average."

During just the last quarter, copper theft cost BC Hydro three-quarters of a million dollars.

March 15, 2012

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