Canada's electricity grid will need substantial changes to help achieve net zero: report

Source: David Thurton | · CBC · | May 4, 2022

Failure to improve could lead to missed climate goals or brownouts, co-author says

Source: An electric vehicle is charged in Ottawa on April 14. Canada must improve its power generation and distribution systems if it's to meet both the rising demand for electricity and its climate goals, according to a new report. (Francis Ferland/CBC)

Canada will need to make aggressive changes to its electricity systems to meet increased demand, driven partly by the uptake of electric vehicles, according to a new report.  

The report, released Wednesday by the Canadian Climate Institute, says significant changes are required to every aspect of the provincial and territorial power generation and distribution systems to meet the future demand. Otherwise, there could be consequences ranging from not meeting our climate goals to brownouts.

"There could be challenges for reliability," said Caroline Lee, one of the report's authors and a senior researcher at the institute, which researches climate policy. "That means outages and certain technical issues in our grids." 

The Liberal government has committed to aligning Canada's electricity system with the country's climate goals.

But as other reports have warned, in the future, more power generation capacity will be needed to both displace existing fossil fuel generation and meet growing demand while meeting net-zero targets. The federal government has set a deadline of 2035 for achieving net-zero electricity generation. All new car sales will have to be zero-emission by that same time. 

The institute's report — called The Big Switch, Powering Canada's Net Zero Future — relies on multiple studies that show the electricity system will need to double or triple its capacity by 2050. As much as 75 per cent of that additional power will need to come from wind and solar if Canada is to meet its climate goals.