Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a clean electricity strategy Thursday he says will help double Canada鈥檚 electricity grid by 2050 and lower energy costs for the majority of Canadian households.
Canada is facing major challenges, including higher energy costs resulting from the plus the effects of climate change, Carney said.
鈥淲hen the world fundamentally changes, we must respond with new approaches,鈥� he said.
The new strategy includes regulations that will allow natural gas to play a larger role in building the grid. Construction is expected to cost more than $1 trillion Canadian ($730 billon).
鈥淭he path to affordability is electrification,鈥� Carney told a news conference in Ottawa. 鈥淭he path to competitiveness is electrification. The path to net zero is electricity.鈥�
Carney said the plan includes new partnerships with and a willingness to use a wide range of energy, including hydro, nuclear, wind, solar, some gas, carbon capture and geothermal.
鈥淭he scale is huge, the timeline is short and the task of getting the right mix of power is complex,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 simply rely on restrictions and prohibitions. We must do things differently.鈥�
The government forecasts 130,000 new workers will be needed to double the size of grid.
The strategy signals a shift from the existing clean electricity regulations presented by the former Liberal government under That plan to decarbonize Canada鈥檚 grid by 2050 set limits on carbon dioxide pollution from almost all electricity generation units that use fossil fuels.
Electricity accounts for about 7% of Canada鈥檚 total greenhouse emissions, an amount that has fallen substantially in the last 15 years as most provinces reduced or phased out the use of coal power.
The strategy doesn鈥檛 say how much money the government is willing to spend to achieve the goal, although it mentions offering tax credits and bringing back energy-saving retrofits for up to a million households.
The Canadian Climate Institute, a climate change policy research organization, said the strategy is “pointing in the right direction鈥� but several important issues remain ambiguous or missing.
鈥淯ltimately, the success of the strategy will depend on details of how 鈥� and how swiftly 鈥� the government follows through on expanding clean power generation, transmission and widespread electrification,鈥� Dale Beugin, the institute’s executive vice president, said in a press release.
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