Renewable Energy in Canada
A Status Report
We are in the midst of an energy revolution. The numbers are just in from 2009, and for the second year in a row more money was invested globally in renewable power than in coal, natural gas and nuclear electricity generation combined. Technologies such as wind and solar have come of age and are becoming significant players around the world.
By Tim Weis
Countries that have taken the lead in developing these technologies have all done so as a result of their respective governments making it a key policy priority. In China, the United States and many countries in Europe, renewable energy and energy-efficiency investments were major components of stimulus packages. On a federal level, Canada has been slow to come to the table, but leadership is emerging largely at provincial, municipal and even individual levels.
By and large, Canada is starting from a better place than many of its industrialized counterparts. With large hydro dams making up well over half of the electricity supply, and a diminishing role of coal power nationally, Canada’s electricity system produces about half of the pollution as the American equivalent for every unit of electricity that is produced.
However, the generation of electricity still constitutes more than 16% of Canada’s overall greenhouse gas emissions, and given that Canada has the world’s sixth largest electricity system, these are not trivial amounts. Furthermore, Canada’s provincial [and territorial] electricity systems are far from homogenous, meaning that buildings operating in different parts of the country will result in significantly different emissions even if they are using the same equipment.
Not only do generation profiles and emissions vary greatly from province to province, but the provinces also regulate electricity within their own borders. Most provinces in Canada are not well interconnected, and provinces with huge hydro resources such as Quebec, BC and Manitoba often export more electricity south of the border than they do with to their neighbouring provinces.
Demise of coal
These neighbours, such as Ontario, New Brunswick [and Nova Scotia], Alberta and Saskatchewan, are still heavily dependent on coal. This means that buildings using electricity in different parts of the country will have very different environmental impacts. The difference in pollution profiles between these provinces is staggering. For example, a kilowatt-hour of electricity produced in Saskatchewan results in 40 times more greenhouse gas pollution than that same kilowatt-hour produced in Quebec.
The good news is that many provinces have realized that burning coal to produce electricity needs to quickly become a thing of the past. Manitoba phased out its only coal-burning plant in 2009, and Ontario, traditionally the second largest user of coal in Canada, is ahead of schedule in its own plan to shut down all of its coal plants by 2014.
Even Nova Scotia, the province that is most dependent on coal power in Canada has started its phase-out, legislating 25% renewable power in the province by 2015 and setting targets to have coal reduced from approximately 70% of its power supply today to 40% by 2020. These provincial actions will reduce the emissions from coal in Canada to almost half of their current levels.
Following these leads, in June 2010 the Federal government announced it will direct all existing [and new] coal power plants to comply with “strict regulations” on emissions at the “end of the economic lives” to be enabled with carbon capture and storage - or be forced to shut down. While the economic life of a coal plant has been defined as 45 years, and the emissions regulations are still not defined, this step nonetheless marks a turning point in Canada in that business as usual for the dirtiest of all fossil fuels is no longer acceptable.
Energy alternatives
What alternatives the future holds in Canada remains unclear. The federal government made an election promise that it repeated in the 2008 speech from the throne that 90% of Canada’s electricity would be generated from “non-emitting” sources [listed by the government as including hydro, nuclear, coal with carbon capture and storage, and renewable sources] by the year 2020.
Using this definition, Canada currently produces about 75% of its electricity from non-emitting sources. While the aforementioned coal regulations are a step forward, there are no formal plans to achieve this goal. In terms of encouraging new renewable power, the federal government had an incentive policy to encourage wind power in the early 2000s. It was expanded in size and scope in 2006 and, up until last year, was the major federal support mechanism for renewable electricity. Funding for this program has now lapsed and it, along with most of the federal “ecoENERGY” programs, including home and building retrofits that were not renewed in the 2010 federal budget. It remains to be seen what, if anything the federal government will do going forward to support renewable energy.
Many provinces have taken significant steps toward encouraging renewable electricity generation. Among them, Ontario’s Green Energy Act is by far the most comprehensive. Modelled after the most successful models for procuring renewable power in Europe, Ontario implemented a feed-in tariff [FIT] in 2009, which is designed to create market security and stability for a range of renewable technologies from large-scale wind to farm biogas to roof-top solar panels.
The FIT awards 20-year contracts to “feed” renewable electricity into the grid, and pays guaranteed rates or “tariffs” designed to yield modest, but stable and positive rates of return on all of these technologies if they are built and maintained properly. BC and Nova Scotia have recently announced less ambitious, but similar programs limited to “community-based” projects. While these two provinces do not have the same level of support for solar electricity, they both support solar hot water programs.
Some municipalities are also ramping up efforts to support renewable power locally. One example of such action is in Medicine Hat, Alberta, where the city has set a target of achieving 25% renewable power by 2025, has set aside more than $1 million for renewable energy development, organized free public seminars on solar energy and has sold municipally-owned lots for housing on the condition that buyers install solar systems. Other examples include the City of Toronto, which has launched a pilot program called Solar Neighbourhoods designed to help home owners conserve water and to purchase solar water heaters. Another is Dawson Creek, BC which has mandated that all new homes be built “solar-ready”; and the City of Edmonton has recently set up a renewable energy task force to look at what it can do locally to support renewable electricity.
While there is progress being made all across the country, efforts need to be ramped up if we, as a country, are to do our fair share to stop dangerous climate change. Building smarter and retrofitting existing buildings also has an important role to play given that close to 20% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the country result from energy use in buildings. In meeting pollution reduction targets, energy efficiency is always the most cost effective place to start.
While major gains can and need to be made through efficiency technologies and design, there will be a continued need for energy generation. Fortunately, renewable electricity technologies are now readily available, increasingly at reasonable costs. The International Energy Agency predicts that solar electricity could reach grid parity within the coming decade if governments continue to support it and developers continue to deploy it on rooftops, in buildings and on the ground.
In other cases, renewable electricity is already cost effective. We have the technology to make major reductions in emissions from the electricity sector in a short time period, but we need a strong and stable demand to do so. Ensuring that buildings buy renewable power, or generate their own, is an important step in making it a reality.
Tim Weis is the Director of Renewable Energy and Efficiency Policy at the Pembina Institute, a nation-wide sustainable energy think tank.
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