Canada’s proposed effort to achieve net-zero power sector emissions by 2035 is possible despite “formidable challenges, risks, and trade-offs” according to a report from a consortium of electricity industry leaders.
The Canadian government is engaging with stakeholders on the target. It’s part of broader legislation to decarbonize economy-wide by 2050, which follows guidelines from the Paris Climate Agreement. The Canada Electricity Advisory Council (CEAC), which is made up of 19 industry leaders from throughout the country, provided analysis and recommendations for reaching the goal.
The report largely focuses on strategies to decarbonize the power sectors in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and remote communities that rely heavily on fossil fuels, like natural gas. Approximately 80% of Canadians already live in provinces with more than 90% non-emitting power generation.
One of the challenges, the authors wrote, is balancing decarbonization efforts with rapid load growth.
The CEAC offered four recommendations to industry leaders and policymakers in order to achieve the net-zero goal: 1) rapidly expand clean electricity infrastructure and reform permitting rules; 2) ensure affordability; 3) maintain reliability, especially in areas dependent on fossil fuels; and 4) embrace Indigenous Nationas and communities as partners, since much of the new infrastructure will need to be built on their lands.
Transmission reform was identified as a key policy objective, much like it is in the U.S. CAEC recommended that investment tax credits for clean energy projects be extended to intra-provincial transmission projects. Collaboration between provincial leaders on inter-regional transmission is also critical, they said.
Alberta, which generates the lowest share of emission-free electricity in Canada, used the CAEC report to slam the federal government’s net-zero agenda, calling it a “dangerous, costly and unrealistic path to failure.”
“Alberta is rapidly decarbonizing its grid, but we refuse to gamble with winter blackouts and crippling energy bills,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Rebecca Schulz, the province’s minister of environment and protected areas, wrote in a statement.
Originally published in Renewable Energy World.