The federal government’s newly released National Electricity Strategy (NES) is a welcome sign that the Carney government is serious about strengthening Canada’s electricity systems to address energy security, affordability, sustainability and reliability concerns.
The strategy aims to double the capacity of the country’s electricity grid by 2050 while lowering energy costs for seven in 10 Canadian households through “generational investments” in this sector.
Consultations with provinces, territories, Indigenous Peoples, utilities and unions are getting underway to flesh out the strategy.
But as the federal government embarks on this ambitious endeavour, here are three critical questions the consultations must address for the NES to be effective:
How will we build it?
As the strategy notes, Canada needs to build transmission lines – and quickly – across the country so that when (say) a drought hits a province heavily dependent on large-scale hydro power for electricity – like Quebec, British Columbia or Manitoba – it can draw available electricity from neighbouring provinces rather than importing it at a higher cost from another country or using more carbon-intense sources like gas-fired turbines to generate it.
Having more regulatory streamlining and a common vision amongst provinces, territories, Indigenous groups, utilities and unions, as the strategy suggests, is promising. However, the real challenge lies in the process of building things – including getting people and communities on side.
Opposition from those who feel excluded from the process or believe decisions were made before consultations even began can delay or derail projects through the courts, protests or other means.
We saw this in Ontario when the McGuinty government faced fierce opposition from rural communities and some municipalities over its Green Energy and Green Economy Act.
While the legislation aimed to create a renewable energy industry in the province, it upset many people who felt they had no say over development happening quickly around them – creating opposition that ultimately led the current government to repeal the legislation and cancel hundreds of renewable energy projects.
More recently, Indigenous Peoples have raised concerns about efforts – including the One Canadian Economy Act (Bill C-5) – to steamroll existing laws to get projects built quickly, including by watering down environmental protections, consultations processes and recognition of Indigenous Peoples rights.
Instead of acting quickly, the government must “go slow to go fast,” as Bill Lomax, head of the First Nations Bank of Canada, has advised; a sentiment echoed by many of the Canadian public.
This means investing the time upfront and throughout in planning, engaging stakeholders and rightsholders and mitigating risks. By frontloading efforts, governments can build support, prevent delays and get projects up and running more quickly.
What will be included?
The NES focuses much attention on natural gas, while virtually ignoring small-scale energy systems, like stationary batteries, solar home systems and other distributed energy resources (DERs), that are located close to where energy is consumed.
Yet, these systems are an effective way to manage electricity demand – think of a neighbourhood microgrid, such as in downtown Lac-Mégantic, Québec, that could attach or separate from larger electricity grids depending on local power needs.
When determining which projects to include in the NES, governments must consider “going small” to meet local and regional needs.
These decentralized and localized systems would have been invaluable to Ottawa residents during the 2022 derecho and 2018 tornados that cut power in the city for days by providing people with enough power to charge cell phones and prevent food and medicine from spoiling in the fridge.
A recent report on DER potential in Ontario estimates that DERs could cut grid upgrade costs by up to 11 per cent over the next 20 years, making them a feasible and affordable solution.
Who benefits?
Public support for large-scale energy projects depends on people seeing tangible benefits for their communities.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the United States where residents in some communities oppose AI data centres in their area over concerns that they are the ones bearing higher electricity costs to run them while big tech and investors benefit.
As Canada eyes building up AI data centres in the name of data sovereignty, similar pushback is likely to arise here, underscoring the need for governments to ensure that it is communities and not big tech and investors who reap the rewards from NES electricity grid upgrades.
The NES offers a promising path forward to meet Canada’s sustainable and affordable energy needs.
For it to succeed, consultations must move beyond the strategy’s broad ambitions and tackle the critical issues that could make or break it.
Photo courtesy of DepositPhotos
