An ideal marriage? The battle to match US clean energy demand with excess Canadian hydropower

Source: Scott Van Voohis · UTILITY DIVE · | August 16, 2021

It would seem like the perfect match — a surplus of Canadian hydropower with a grid in the U.S. that is hungry for more renewable power sources. But moving that power is proving to be complicated.

Source: Adrian Ace Williams via Getty Images

With massive reservoirs deep in the northern woods, Québec and other Canadian provinces produce a surplus of hydropower, one of the oldest forms of renewable energy around.

On the other side of the border, in New England and New York, state governments are pushing ahead with ambitious plans to decarbonize their power grids.

Pairing up surplus Canadian hydropower with demand from renewable power-hungry utilities in New York, Massachusetts and other states would seem to be a pragmatic and maybe even a compelling move as the fight to combat climate change takes on a new urgency.

Nor is it a one-way street, with public utility Hydro-Québec interested in buying solar and wind power when the whims of nature provide a surplus, and storing that power in its reservoirs.

"This is where we see the market moving, toward intermittent renewable assets," said Serge Abergel, communications director for Hydro-Québec. 

A new study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory sees hydro playing a key role in the decarbonization of the North American power grid. U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O'Regan unveiled the study at a June 24 meeting, while also inking an updated and revised energy cooperation agreement aimed at accelerating efforts to clean up the continent's power grid.

Michelle Manary, acting deputy assistant secretary for energy resilience in the Office of Electricity at the Department of Energy, said that meeting the Biden administration's goal of decarbonizing the power sector by 2035 will require tapping into a broad range non-emitting energy sources, including Canadian hydro.

"It means you are going to need a lot of clean energy to displace or retire the dirty stuff," Manary told Utility Dive in an interview. "You are going to have to have every clean energy resource available to meet those goals."