Premier Christy Clark announced a new provincial energy strategy Friday that trades off the energy self-sufficiency target of the Gordon Campbell government for a new liquefied natural gas industry that has the potential to attract new businesses, new jobs and an estimated $20 billion in new investments to the province.

Clark chose the B.C. Institute of Technology to make the announcement, surrounded by student apprentices in energy fields.

"This is an opportunity to establish an entirely new industry in British Columbia. This is not something that happens every day and it is not even something that happens every decade," Clark said.

The cornerstone of the strategy is the establishment three LNG plants at Kitimat by 2020. Two proposals have already received export permits - a consortium led by Apache Energy and a partnership including the Haisla First Nation. The third is by Shell Canada, which recently purchased a site for a plant at Kitimat.

The plants require huge amounts of energy to liquefy the gas by cooling it to minus 160 degrees Celsius so it can be transported offshore by ship. One LNG plant alone would consume as much power as the three paper mills operated by Catalyst Paper, currently the largest energy user in the province.

To power them, the government intends to abandon B.C. Hydro's long-held strategy of planning its hydroelectric generation around so-called critical water, the amount of water needed behind the dams to get the province through years of drought. The new standard will be average water, enough in reservoirs to meet the needs in average years. During periods of drought, the province would buy energy on the open market, likely from Alberta or Washington.

That change in the standard is expected to provide enough power for the first two LNG plants.

The Shell plant, expected to be the largest, would be powered by a combination of wind power and a natural gas-fired power generation station. A fourth LNG plant, a consortium headed by Malaysian energy giant Petronas, is in the discussion stages. It, too, would require a natural gas-fired power plant.

Building an LNG industry makes sense, the premier said, because of the gap between natural gas prices in North America - it is now selling for $2.38 US a unit - and the price of gas in Asia, where it sells for $14.78 US a unit.

It costs from $4 to $5 a unit to liquefy the gas.

Clark said she does not believe the plants would raise the wellhead price for natural gas, resulting in higher prices in B.C. for consumers, as the value is being added only at the export point.

However, a recent study by the U.S. government's Energy Information Agency estimates that North American natural gas prices could rise as much as 54 per cent by 2018 if all the U.S. LNG plants under consideration are built. There has been a call in the U.S. for a halt on any more certifications for export projects until the impact on families and businesses is considered.

The clean energy sector came out with qualified support for the new direction, saying the government's commitment to combine green power with natural gas-fired power will benefit the sector.

"Our estimate is that 12,000 to 15,000 gigawatt hours of energy could be needed by 2020 for those three plants alone," said Paul Kariya, executive director of the Clean Energy Association of B.C. "If those are going to all be fired by electricity and renewables are a large part of that, that's a good opportunity for our sector."

However, the switch in Hydro's reservoir standard from planning for critical years to average years, could mean more reliance on dirty power from the U.S., he said.

Nicholas Heap, B.C. regional director for the Canadian Wind Energy Association, also applauded the focus on green energy, adding that he is looking forward to new calls for proposals from B.C. Hydro for that energy.

He was more critical of the switch to planning reservoirs to meet the demand in average years.

"We now intend that we will not be able to meet our own energy needs one out of every two years in B.C. That is unprecedented. We have never planned on relying on imports in this province before. And it is at a time when electricity demands are growing as they haven't in decades."

Clark said the development of LNG would add an additional $2 billion a year to provincial coffers.

The plants are not large long-term job generators. All three would employ only 800 people, according to the government.

However, the eight-year construction period would employ 8,000 people and the development of a new industry is expected to create jobs in the supply sector and in the gas fields of northeastern British Columbia.