BC Hydro's Olympics operation centre is secreted away in a secure location in the Fraser Valley. (CBC)

BC Hydro says it has a detailed plan to keep the lights on at Metro Vancouver and Whistler venues during the Olympics, no matter what challenges are presented by southwest B.C.'s sometimes wild winter weather.

The utility took news media on a tour of its operations center Thursday at a Fraser Valley location shrouded in secrecy for security reasons. Media outlets were allowed to join in the tour on the strict condition that the centre's location not be revealed in any reports.

The center will be staffed 24 hours a day, tracking winter storms and checking that the power supply is constant and consistent to all Games locations.

'Should something happen, we feel we're in a good position to respond'—Julius Pataky, BC Transmission Corporation

"With 350,000 visitors coming into our service area, it's definitely not business as usual," said Eric Valois, BC Hydro's general manager of distribution operations.

The Games are not expected to use an inordinate amount of electricity. It's estimated that venues will draw an extra 80 gigawatt hours, about the same amount that would power 80,000 homes through a two-week period.

That amount would be two per cent of the total power available to the area.

Weather-caused outages – typical in winter months – are BC Hydro's main concern.

A windstorm in the Lower Mainland and southern Vancouver Island Jan. 18 knocked out power to more than 50,000 homes and businesses.

High winds tend to knock B.C.'s abundance of trees down over power lines, shorting them out or snapping them.

But Valois insisted the utility was ready for such occurrences during the Olympic and Paralympic Games in February and March.

24-hour standby

"We have the infrastructure, the backup systems and some of the best crews in the world to be able to deliver clean and reliable power," he said.

Repair crews will be on 24-hour standby near all Games sites.

BC Hydro has also built a second power line into most venues. If one line goes down, the second would kick in automatically.

If even that were to fail, staff at the operations center could quickly re-route power from the U.S. or Alberta.

"Hopefully [staff] will be extremely bored," said Julius Pataky, a vice-president with the BC Transmission Corporation.

"But should something happen, we feel we're in a good position to respond to that."