Canada could become a clean-energy colossus thanks to time zones, if we can just build out our east-west power grid.
How would that work?
First, it’s about making more power.
We’re going to need a lot more electricity during the next 20 to 30 years. We’re going to have electric cars and buses, fewer gas powered furnaces and ranges (we should just ban those in new builds) and the end of fuel oil heating systems in Atlantic Canada.
So we need lots and lots of power.
Where are we going to get it?
The good news is we already produce a lot of zero-carbon electricity. In four provinces – B.C., Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec – we use the word “hydro” as a synonym for electricity.
In coming years, the Prairies are well positioned to make lots of solar power. B.C. is adding offshore wind farms in the coming years, and the Wind West project proposed for the Maritimes could supply a staggering 25 per cent of Canada’s current power needs!
Ah, but I can already hear the smug rejoinder that comes from climate-change deniers. What do you do when the sun goes down and the wind isn’t blowing? What then?
Well, first off, we have dams, nuclear power, and we can add geothermal.
But also, Canada is big, and the sun is shining or the wind is always blowing somewhere.
Consider this – when it’s 3 p.m. on a windy day in B.C., or 4 p.m. on a sunny day Alberta, it’s 7 p.m. in Toronto and Montreal. That means Alberta isn’t at peak electricity use yet, but eastern Canada is. All those commuters have gone home and fired up the oven and are running the washing machine.
With a robust national grid, the West could transmit a surplus of power to Ontario and Quebec.
It works in reverse, too. By the time Alberta and B.C. are in peak power evening times, it’s the middle of the night in the Maritimes. They’re not using any of their abundant offshore wind (offshore wind generates power about 90 per cent of the time, and makes more power at night and in colder months) so Nova Scotia and New Brunswick could send their surplus to the West.
What we lack is a method to get that power back and forth, from where it’s produced to where it’s needed. Our grid has more north-south connections than east-west.
This is just a crude example – there are complications, some power is lost in long-distance transmission. But a robust national grid with stronger province-to-province connections will help balance a changing, green power market.
It may be more economical to generate a majority of power locally, but dealing with the surges and lulls of demand is a task we can share.
Solar and wind and batteries keep getting cheaper.
A new, modernized grid gives us more choices – to export our power, or to make so much of it so cheaply that we can power job-creating industries, from steel to software, right here in Canada.