Canada is facing mounting challenges to keep up with growing demand for electricity, says a report from a North American electricity reliability watchdog, raising concerns that a strained power system may not be able to handle future instances of extreme cold or hot weather.
There are growing risks across the continent, including in several provinces in Canada, according to an assessment published last week by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a not-for-profit regulatory authority.
“Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and the Maritimes in Canada are characterized as elevated risk,” said NERC chief executive officer Jim Robb in an interview with Global News.
The finding means the provinces can manage demand for electrical power under under normal conditions, “but if they were faced with an extreme weather event or an extreme set of circumstances that they would not have the same degree of reserves,” Robb said.
Problems with the bulk power system have been infrequent in the last few years, but typically happen during extreme weather, Robb said. He highlighted winter storm Elliott in Dec. 2022 that caused outages across the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.
“That area at that time was categorized as normal risk. We have also seen extreme events, particularly summer heat domes, where areas that were characterized as elevated or high risk came through with no issues at all. But they were very close from a risk perspective of having challenges.”
Robb said it’s important to highlight that NERC’s published findings represent a risk analysis, not a prediction of blackouts.
“What it does say is that the continent in general is struggling to keep up with the demand that is anticipated to come onto the grid over the next five to 10 years.”
Robb said the ‘high risk’ category, applies to several jurisdictions in the United States, but currently, none in Canada. Often times, demand for electricity is growing faster than resources are being developed, or resources are been retired faster than they’re being replaced.
The increased demand for power in North America is driven by electrification, industrialization, reindustrialization and a repatriation of industry, he explained.
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“The growth in data centers, which consume a tremendous amount of power and are very, very large facilities, as well as population changes around the continent. In the U.S., the primary driver of demand are data centers. In Canada, it’s driven more by industrial activity.”
While the NERC report is not predicting widespread failures, Robb said there is reason for concern, particularly as the United States competes to lead in artificial intelligence.
“Power is so critical to every aspect of people’s lives today,” he said. “Think about what your life would be like the day you wake up and flip the switch and the lights don’t come on. That’s a really bad day in the 21st century.”
NERC projects summer peak electricity demand across North America will grow by 224 gigawatts over the next decade, a more than 69 per cent increase over the 2024 forecast. Winter demand is expected to grow by 246 gigawatts over the next 10 years. A single gigawatt is roughly the peak electricity demand to power a large city such as San Francisco, highlighting the massive scale of the new demand coming onto the grid.
Meeting winter demand is a critical concern for Canada, especially in light of recent weather events. Last month, two senior women died after being found during separate wellness checks as parts of Quebec were left without power for days during a cold snap. More recently, Nova Scotia’s power utility asked residents to conserve energy as extremely cold temperatures hit the province.
“Nova Scotia ran into some serious trouble last week with all the very cold weather,” Robb said.
On Jan. 26, Nova Scotia’s power grid was pushed to record demand amid extreme cold temperature and wind chills near –28 C drove electricity use to an “an all-time high,” according to Nova Scotia Power.
The province was nearing a stage that would require shutting off power to some customers and imposing rotating outages across different areas.
Residents were asked to conserve energy. The situation improved and no rotating outages were needed.
The power utility said long-term planning remains central to its strategy, pointing to a diversified mix of thermal generation, renewables, imports from Newfoundland and Labrador, grid-scale batteries and new transmission links with New Brunswick. The province’s Independent Energy System Operator is also planning to procure 300 to 600 megawatts of new fast-acting natural-gas generation.
Hydro-Québec says it is confident it can meet winter demand, despite NERC’s warning about rising risks later in the decade.
“We are able to meet the winter peak demand, and we’ve demonstrated that over the past few weeks,” said spokesperson Cendrix Bouchard, noting the province successfully managed sustained demand near 40,000 megawatts during a recent cold snap.
Bouchard said the NERC assessment focuses on the 2029-31 period and does not fully reflect future supply projects outlined in Hydro-Québec’s Action 2035 plan. Under that plan, the utility expects to invest $10 billion over the next decade in energy efficiency and peak-management measures, shifting at least 3,500 megawatts of demand by 2035.
“We will need to build more capacity, but not only that — we will need to consume better and at the right moment,” Bouchard said.
In New Brunswick, NB Power said NERC’s findings reinforce concerns it has already raised publicly.
“New Brunswick is facing a critical electricity shortfall driven by rapid population growth and increasing electrification,” the utility told Global News in a statement.
It said work is underway on new resources, including renewable energy, storage projects, strengthened interconnections and the proposed Renewable Integration and Grid Security project.
NERC says meeting the demand growth across North America will require building far more generation than is currently planned, a task complicated by supply-chain constraints, fuel infrastructure needs and the growing share of wind and solar power.
“We need to figure out how to build a lot more generation than what’s being talked about right now,” Robb said. “That’s difficult because of supply chains, being able to get the turbines, being able to get the fuel infrastructure in place, and then dealing with variability.”
NERC’s long-term reliability assessment is conducted annually, providing an independent evaluation of whether planned resources can meet electricity demand over the next 10 years.
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