Provincial and territorial leaders announce plan for a connected electricity grid
Eight provinces and two territories have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to build cross-country electricity transmission infrastructure, Ontario Minister of Energy and Mines, Stephen Lecce, announced Wednesday.
Speaking at a press conference in Toronto, Lecce said Canada currently has “13 islands” of grids, making the country less energy independent.
“We know this country’s grid was built for a different era, fragmented and disconnected, built really with a north-south orientation, overwhelmingly, where the power is much easier to flow north-south into the U.S. instead of flowing to each other as Canadians,” Lecce said.
The MOU aims to build national infrastructure and intertie projects that connect the provinces’ and territories’ energy grids, he said, and to develop “intentional policy” to expand electricity trade within Canada before selling power to the U.S. or abroad.
Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Yukon, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and the Northwest Territories have signed on to the agreement.
Joking that the weather in Ontario feels “balmy” compared to back home, Yukon Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, Ted Laking, said his province used more than 90 per cent of its available electricity capacity in December when temperatures dipped as low as minus 50 degrees Celsius for more than a week.
“When it gets that cold, industrial customers like mines must disconnect from the grid to ensure that we have enough electricity to meet the needs of Yukon’s residents,” Laking said. “I share this to underline the importance of today’s agreement. In Canada’s north, energy security is not a theoretical risk. It is a real and serious vulnerability.”
New Brunswick Deputy Premier and Minister of Energy René Legacy said his province is the “backstop” for energy in Atlantic Canada and already has transmission interties with Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. However, scale is a problem for the region.
“A kilometre of transmission line costs the same, whether you have 400,000 rate payers or you have four million, so we need to work in partnership,” Legacy said.
Lecce said the agreement will also advocate for financial support from the federal government to build transmission corridors and for Ottawa to create a national strategy for a “pan-Canadian grid” that connects east-west and north-south.
When asked by a reporter why Quebec did not sign the agreement, Lecce said the province’s government has “expressed support” for the policy but wants to emphasize that resources fall under provincial jurisdiction.
“We’ll respect that they’ll sign when they’re ready, but we do believe we’re in a much better place where Quebec supports the concept of the federal government and the provinces work together to reduce costs and maximize benefits for their ratepayers,” Lecce said.
With the agreement in place, he said the provinces can get to work on building a strategy that includes costs and timelines.
“We’ve got a problem, we’ve agreed to the problem definition, we agreed to a mechanism to fix it,” said Lecce. “The next step now is for the system planners to go off, build the strategy, figure out the intertie connections.”