This is the scale of the huge investment in Canada’s electricity grid that experts say will be required in the near future, as the phasing out of fossil fuel power generation combined with the rapid increase in electricity demand raises unmet demands. have never been seen on Canada’s electricity grid. “The general consensus is that we will need to double or triple the size of our electrical system by 2050,” said Bruce Lourie, president of the nonprofit consulting firm The Transition Accelerator.
A “monumental” work
“I do not think Canadians … recognize or prepare for how monumental work lies ahead.” The federal government, in a plan to reduce emissions last week, outlines the need for cross-border “nation-building” transmission lines if Canada wants to meet its climate target of reducing emissions by 40 percent below 2005 levels. by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. Canada already has one of the cleanest electricity grids in the world, with over 80% generated from non-emitting sources. But slowing down the pace of climate change will require electrifying more activities – from vehicles to heating and cooling buildings to various industrial processes. And not only will the country need more electricity, but more of it will have to come from non-emitting sources. Slowing down the pace of climate change will require electrifying more activities – including vehicles. (Michael Wilson / CBC)
Movement of renewable energy
One way to do this would be to build new transmission lines that could carry renewable energy from jurisdictions such as Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia – which have vast reserves of clean hydroelectric power – to jurisdictions such as Alberta. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. still dependent on fossil fuels for electricity generation. But it is not a simple task. In Canada, electricity falls under provincial jurisdiction and each county system has been developed independently of the others. Alberta, for example, has a fully liberalized electricity market, while electricity in neighboring BC. produced and sold by a Crown company. “The counties, the Crown companies and the utilities need to agree on that,” Lourie said. “At the end of the day, politicians have to sit down and sort things out.” The federal government has already pledged $ 25 million to help supporters start developing regional zero-grid electricity connections. Ottawa has said it wants to “lead the commitment” across Atlantic Canada to the proposed Atlantic Loop initiative, which aims to connect Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with clean hydroelectric power from Quebec and Newfoundland. But it will take a lot more work to make the Atlantic Loop, or any other regional international project, a reality. Not only are the new transmission lines expensive (Lourie estimates that building a true East-West regional system of international connections across Canada could cost more than $ 100 billion), but they tend to be controversial – often attracting reactions from locals. area and other interest groups. Recently, for example, voters in Maine rejected a planned $ 1 billion transmission line that was to carry electricity through the state through the Hydro-Quebec network in Massachusetts. “This is a fairly narrow group of people who do not want a power line to pass through their state, but that means we will have more cost and greater difficulty in reaching our climate goals because of these campaigns,” Lourie said. .
Building support
Binnu Jeyakumar, director of clean energy for The Pembina Institute’s environmental think tank, said Canada’s political leaders need to start working to build support for such projects now. “We see the transport projects as a time frame of a decade. And we certainly do not have such a time frame. We need solutions immediately,” he said. However, Jeyakumar said change could happen quickly if governments send the right messages to the market. He pointed out what happened in Alberta, which is expected to be completely cut off from coal-fired electricity next year, after the provincial government pledged in 2015 to phase out coal-fired power by 2030. He said the federal government’s promised Clean Electricity Model, which aims to support a clean zero electricity network by 2035, would send another clear message to investors and encourage incentives for grid upgrades and interconnections. “What it’s going to do is put in regulating carrots and sticks to make sure the grid is charred,” Jeyakumar said. “In this way, politics can have a real impact.” While electricity infrastructure may not be as impressive as a glamorous new Tesla or a state-of-the-art solar farm, Jeyakumar said other carbon offset efforts would fail if we did not build a network that could support them. “It’s one of those basic building blocks that needs to change so we can see these types of solar and electric vehicles on the road,” he said.
