A price tag in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, and a project scope akin to that of the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1800s.
That’s the scale of the massive investment in Canada’s electricity grid that experts say will be required in the near future, as the phase-out of fossil fuel-fired power generation combined with a rapid increase in demand for electricity puts never-before-seen demands on Canada’s electrical grid.
“The general consensus is that we will need to double or triple the size of our electricity system between now and 2050,” said Bruce Lourie, chair of the non-profit advisory organization The Transition Accelerator.
A ‘monumental’ task
“I don’t think Canadians … are recognizing or prepared for how monumental a task this is ahead of us.”
The federal government, in its emissions reduction plan released last week, describes the need for “nation building” interprovincial transmission lines if Canada is to have a shot at meeting its climate target of cutting emissions by 40 per cent 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 per cent produced by non-emitting sources. But in order to slow the pace of climate change, electrifying more activities — everything from vehicles to heating and cooling buildings to various industrial processes — will be required. And not only will the country need more electricity, but more of it will need to come from non-emitting sources.
To slow the pace of climate change, electrifying more activities — including vehicles — will be required. (Michael Wilson/CBC)
Moving renewable power
One way to do that would be to build new transmission lines that could move renewable power from jurisdictions like Quebec, Manitoba, and British Columbia — which have vast supplies of clean hydropower — to jurisdictions like Alberta, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan, which are all still reliant on fossil fuels for electricity generation.
But it’s not a straightforward task. In Canada, electricity falls under provincial jurisdiction, and each province’s system has developed independently from the rest.
Alberta, for example, has a fully deregulated electricity market, while electricity in neighbouring B.C. is produced and sold by a Crown corporation.
“The provinces, Crown corporations, and electric utilities would all have to agree on this,” Lourie said. “At the end of the day, politicians are going to have to sit down and sort this stuff out.”
The federal government has already pledged $25 million to help proponents begin developing regional net-zero electricity interties.
Ottawa has said it wants to “lead engagement” across Atlantic Canada for the proposed Atlantic Loop initiative, which is intended to connect Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with clean hydropower from Quebec and Newfoundland.
But a great deal more work will be required to make the Atlantic Loop, or any other regional intertie project, a reality. Not only are new transmission lines expensive (Lourie estimates creating a true east-west system of regional interties across Canada could cost upwards of $100 billion), they tend to be controversial — often attracting pushback from local residents and other interest groups.
Recently, for example, voters in Maine rejected a planned $1 billion U.S. transmission line that was to carry electricity through the state from Hydro-Quebec’s network to Massachusetts.
“It’s a fairly narrow group of people who don’t want a power line running through their state, but what it means is we’re going to have greater costs and more difficulty getting to our climate targets because of these campaigns,” Lourie said.
Building support
Binnu Jeyakumar, director of clean energy for the environmental think tank The Pembina Institute, said Canada’s political leaders must start working to build support for these types of projects now.
“Transmission projects, we look at them as about a decade long time frame. And we definitely don’t have that kind of time frame. We need solutions right away,” she said.
But Jeyakumar said it is possible for change to happen quickly, if governments send the right market signals. She pointed to what has happened in Alberta, which is expected to be off of coal-fired electricity entirely next year after the provincial government committed in 2015 to a phase-out of coal power by 2030.
She said the federal government’s promised Clean Electricity Standard, which aims to support a net-zero electricity grid by 2035, will send another clear signal to investors and will incentivize spending on grid upgrades and intertie projects.
“What this is going to do is put in regulatory carrots and sticks to make sure the grid decarbonizes,” Jeyakumar said. “This is how policy can be really impactful.”
While electricity infrastructure may not be as headline-grabbing as a shiny new Tesla or a cutting-edge solar farm, Jeyakumar said other efforts at decarbonization will fail if we don’t build a grid that can support them.
“It’s one of those basic building blocks that needs to be changed so we can see those types of solar projects and electric vehicles on the road,” she said.
HALIFAX – Ottawa is negotiating a $500-million bailout for Nova Scotia’s privately owned electric utility, saying the money will be used to prevent a big spike in electricity rates.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made the announcement today in Halifax, saying Nova Scotia Power Inc. needs the money to cover higher costs resulting from the delayed delivery of electricity from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant in Labrador.
Wilkinson says that without the money, the subsidiary of Emera Inc. would have had to increase rates by 19 per cent over “the short term.”
Nova Scotia Power CEO Peter Gregg says the deal, once approved by the province’s energy regulator, will keep rate increases limited “to be around the rate of inflation,” as costs are spread over a number of years.
The utility helped pay for construction of an underwater transmission link between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, but the Muskrat Falls project has not been consistent in delivering electricity over the past five years.
Those delays forced Nova Scotia Power to spend more on generating its own electricity.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.
No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.
Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.
A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
