Oakville temporarily blocks gas-fired plant

Enel Green Power España Aragon wind farms advance Spain's renewable energy transition, with 90MW under construction in Teruel, Endesa investment of €88 million, 25-50MW turbines, and 2017 auction-backed capacity enhancing grid integration and clean power.

Key Points

They are three Teruel wind projects totaling 90MW, part of Endesa's 2017-awarded plan expanding Spain's clean energy.

✅ 90MW across Sierra Costera I, Allueva, and Sierra Pelarda

✅ €88m invested; 14+7+4 turbines; Endesa-led build in Teruel

✅ Part of 2017 tender: 540MW wind, 339MW solar, nationwide

Enel Green Power Espana, part of Enel's wind projects worldwide, has started constructing three wind farms in Aragon, north-east Spain, which are due online by the end of the year.

The projects, all situated in the Teruel province, are worth a total investment of €88 million.

The biggest of the facilities, Sierra Costera I, will have a 50MW and will feature 14 turbines.

The wind farm is spread across the municipalities of Mezquita de Jarque, Fuentes Calientes, Canada Vellida and Rillo.

The Allueva wind facility will feature seven turbines and will exceed 25MW.

Sierra Pelarda, in Fonfria, will have four turbines and a capacity of 15MW, as advances in offshore wind turbine technology continue to push scale elsewhere.

The projects bring the total number of wind farms that Enel Green Power Espana has started building in the Teruel province to six, equal to an overall capacity of 218MW.

Endesa chief executive Jose Bogas said: “These plants mark the acceleration on a new wave of growth in the renewable energy space that Endesa is committed to pursue in the next years, driving the energy transition in Spain.”

The six wind farms under construction in Teruel are part of the 540MW that Enel Green Power Espana was awarded in the Spanish government's renewable energy tender held in May 2017.

In Aragon, the company will invest around €434 million euros, reflecting broader European wind power investment trends in recent years, to build 13 wind farms with a total installed capacity of more than 380MW.

The remaining 160MW of wind capacity will be located in Andalusia, Castile-Leon, Castile La Mancha and Galicia, even as some Spanish turbine factories closed during pandemic restrictions.

Enel Green Power Espana was also awarded 339MW of solar capacity in the Spanish government's auction held in July 2017, while other Spanish developers advance CSP projects abroad in markets like Chile.

Once all wind and solar under the 2017 tender are complete they will boost the company’s capacity by around 52%.

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Crosbie Hydro Energy Action Plan outlines rate mitigation for Muskrat Falls, leveraging Nalcor oil revenues, export sales, Holyrood savings, and potential Hydro-Quebec taxation to keep Newfoundland and Labrador electricity rates near 14.67 cents/kWh.

Key Points

PC plan to cap post-Muskrat rates by using Nalcor revenues, exports, and savings, with optional Accord funds.

✅ $575.4M yearly to hold rates near 14.67 cents/kWh

✅ Sources: Nalcor oil $231M, Holyrood $150M, rates/dividends $123.4M

✅ Options: export sales, restructuring, Atlantic Accord, HQ tax

Newfoundland and Labrador PC Leader Ches Crosbie says Muskrat Falls won't drive up electricity rates, a goal consistent with an agreement to shield ratepayers from cost overruns, if he's elected premier.

According to Crosbie, who presented the party's Crosbie Hydro Energy Action Plan — acronym CHEAP — at a press conference Monday, $575.4 million is needed per year in order to keep rates from ballooning past 14.67 cents per kilowatt hour.

Here's where he thinks the money could come from:

• Hydro rates and dividends — $123.4 million
• Export sales — $40.1 million
• Nalcor restructuring — $30 million
• Holyrood savings — $150  million
• Nalcor oil revenue — $231 million

The oil money, Crosbie said, isn't going into government coffers but being invested into the offshore which, he said, is a good place for it.

"But the plan from the beginning around Muskrat Falls was that if there was need for it — for mitigation for rates — that those revenues and operating cash flows from Nalcor oil and gas would be available to be recycled into rate mitigation, as reflected in a recent financial update on the pandemic's impact. and that's what we're going to have to do," he said.

According to Crosbie, his numbers come from the preliminary stage of the Public Utilities Board process, even as rate mitigation talks have lacked public details.

This is a recent aerial view of the Muskrat Falls project in central Labrador. The project is more than 90 per cent complete, with first power forecast for late 2019, alongside Ottawa's $5.2B support for the project. (Nalcor)

"I'm telling you this is the best information available to anyone outside of government," he said. "We're working on what we can."

The PUB estimated Nalcor restructuring could save between $10 million and $15 million, according to Crosbie, but he figures there's "enough duplication and overpayment involved in the way things are now set up that we can find $30 million there."

Currently, provincial ratepayers pay about 12 cents per kilowatt hour as electricity users have started paying for Muskrat Falls costs.

Crosbie's $575.4-million figure would put rates at 14.67 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2021, where his plan pledges to keep them.

A recent Public Utilities Board Report says there's a potential $10 million to $15 million in savings from Nalcor, but Crosbie says he can find $30 million. (CBC)

"The promise is that Muskrat Falls, when it comes online — comes in service — will not increase your rates. Between now and when that happens there are rate increases already in the pipeline up to that level of [14.67 cents per kilowatt-hour] … so that is the baseline target rate at which rates will be kept.

"In other words, Muskrat will not drive up prices for electricity to consumers beyond that point."

In addition to those savings, Crosbie's plan outlined two further steps.

"We think it could be done out of the resources that I've just identified now, but if there's a problem with that, and as a temporary measure, we can use a modest amount of the Atlantic Accord review, fiscal review, revenues," he said.

Plan 'nothing new'

Premier Dwight Ball slammed the plan at the House of Assembly on Monday, saying it lacked insight.

"It was a copy and paste exercise," he told reporters. "There's nothing new in that plan. Not at all."

"We're not leaving any stone unturned of where the opportunity would be to actually generate revenue," he said.  "We are genuinely concerned about rate mitigation and we've got to get a plan in place."

Potential to tax Hydro-Québec

Crosbie also said there's potential to tax Hydro-Québec.

According to Crosbie, tax exemptions that expired in 2016 allow the province to tax exports from the Upper Churchill, which, he said, could result in "hundreds of millions or billions" in revenue.

"It's not my philosophy to immediately go and do that because that would generate litigation — who needs more of that? — but we do need to let Quebec know that we're very aware of that, and aware of that opportunity, and invite them to come talk about a whole host of issues," Crosbie said.

Crosbie said the tax would also have to be applied to domestic consumption.

"But so massive is the potential revenue from the Upper Churchill export that there would be ways to mitigate that and negate the effect of that on consumers in the province."

Crosbie said with the Atlantic Accord revenue, he could still present a balanced budget by 2022.

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Maritime Link HVDC Transmission connects Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to the North American grid, enabling renewable energy imports, subsea cable interconnection, Muskrat Falls hydro power delivery, and lower carbon emissions across Atlantic Canada.

Key Points

A 500 MW HVDC intertie linking Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to deliver Muskrat Falls hydro power.

✅ 500 MW capacity using twin 170 km subsea HVDC cables

✅ Interconnects Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to the North American grid

✅ Enables Muskrat Falls hydro imports, cutting CO2 and costs

For the first time, electricity has been sent between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia through the new Maritime Link.

The 500-megawatt transmission line — which connects Newfoundland to the North American energy grid for the first time and echoes projects like the New England Clean Power Link underway — was tested Friday.

"This changes not only the energy options for Newfoundland and Labrador but also for Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada," said Rick Janega, the CEO of Emera Newfoundland and Labrador, which owns the link.

"It's an historic event in our eyes, one that transforms the electricity system in our region forever."

'On time and on budget'

It will eventually carry power from the Muskrat Falls hydro project in Labrador, where construction is running two years behind schedule and $4 billion over budget, a context in which the Manitoba Hydro line to Minnesota has also faced delay, to Nova Scotia consumers. It was supposed to start producing power later this year, but the new deadline is 2020 at the earliest.

The project includes two 170-kilometre subsea cables across the Cabot Strait between Cape Ray in southwestern Newfoundland and Point Aconi in Cape Breton.

The two cables, each the width of a two-litre pop bottle, can carry 250 megawatts of high voltage direct current, and rest on the ocean floor at depths up to 470 metres.

This reel of cable arrived in St. John's back in April aboard the Norwegian vessel Nexans Skagerrak, after the first power cable reached Nova Scotia earlier in the project. (Submitted by Emera NL)

The Maritime Link also includes almost 50 kilometres of overland transmission in Nova Scotia and more than 300 kilometres of overland transmission in Newfoundland, paralleling milestones on Site C transmission work in British Columbia.

The link won't go into commercial operation until January 1.

Janega said the $1.6-billion project is on time and on budget.

"We're very pleased to be in a position to be able to say that after seven years of working on this. It's quite an accomplishment," he said.

This Norwegian vessel was used to transport the 5,500 tonne subsea cable. (Submitted by Emera NL)

Once in service, the link will improve electrical interconnections between the Atlantic provinces, aligning with climate adaptation guidance for Canadian utilities.

"For Nova Scotia it will allow it to achieve its 40 per cent renewable energy target in 2020. For Newfoundland it will allow them to shut off the Holyrood generating station, in fact using the Maritime Link in advance of the balance of the project coming into service," Janega said.

Karen Hutt, president and CEO of Nova Scotia Power, which is owned by Emera Inc., calls it a great day for Nova Scotia.

"When it goes into operation in January, the Maritime Link will benefit Nova Scotia Power customers by creating a more stable and secure system, helping reduce carbon emissions, and enabling NSP to purchase power from new sources," Hutt said in a statement.

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Ukraine-ENTSO-E Grid Synchronization links Ukraine and Moldova to the European grid via secure interconnection, matching frequency for stability, resilience, and energy security, enabling cross-border support, islanding recovery, and coordinated load balancing during wartime disruptions.

Key Points

Rapid alignment of Ukraine and Moldova into the European grid to enable secure interconnection and system stability.

✅ Matches 50 Hz frequency across interconnected systems

✅ Enables cross-border support and electricity trading

✅ Improves resilience, stability, and energy security

On February 24 Ukraine’s electric grid operator disconnected the country’s power system from the larger Russian-operated network to which it had always been linked. The long-planned disconnection was meant to be a 72-hour trial proving that Ukraine could operate on its own and to protect electricity supply before winter as contingencies were tested. The test was a requirement for eventually linking with the European grid, which Ukraine had been working toward since 2017. But four hours after the exercise started, Russia invaded.

Ukraine’s connection to Europe—which was not supposed to occur until 2023—became urgent, and engineers aimed to safely achieve it in just a matter of weeks. On March 16 they reached the key milestone of synchronizing the two systems. It was “a year’s work in two weeks,” according to a statement by Kadri Simson, the European Union commissioner for energy. That is unusual in this field. “For [power grid operators] to move this quickly and with such agility is unprecedented,” says Paul Deane, an energy policy researcher at the University College Cork in Ireland. “No power system has ever synchronized this quickly before.”

Ukraine initiated the process of joining Europe’s grid in 2005 and began working toward that goal in earnest in 2017, as did Moldova. It was part of an ongoing effort to align with Europe, as seen in the Baltic states’ disconnection from the Russian grid, and decrease reliance on Russia, which had repeatedly threatened Ukraine’s sovereignty. “Ukraine simply wanted to decouple from Russian dominance in every sense of the word, and the grid is part of that,” says Suriya Jayanti, an Eastern European policy expert and former U.S. diplomat who served as energy chief at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv from 2018 to 2020.

After the late February trial period, Ukrenergo, the Ukrainian grid operator, had intended to temporarily rejoin the system that powers Russia and Belarus. But the Russian invasion made that untenable. “That left Ukraine in isolation mode, which would be incredibly dangerous from a power supply perspective,” Jayanti says. “It means that there’s nowhere for Ukraine to import electricity from. It’s an orphan.” That was a particularly precarious situation given Russian attacks on key energy infrastructure such as the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and ongoing strikes on Ukraine’s power grid that posed continuing risks. (According to Jayanti, Ukraine’s grid was ultimately able to run alone for as long as it did because power demand dropped by about a third as Ukrainians fled the country.)

Three days after the invasion, Ukrenergo sent a letter to the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) requesting authorization to connect to the European grid early. Moldelectrica, the Moldovan operator, made the same request the following day. While European operators wanted to support Ukraine, they had to protect their own grids, amid renewed focus on protecting the U.S. power grid from Russian hacking, so the emergency connection process had to be done carefully. “Utilities and system operators are notoriously risk-averse because the job is to keep the lights on, to keep everyone safe,” says Laura Mehigan, an energy researcher at University College Cork.

An electric grid is a network of power-generating sources and transmission infrastructure that produces electricity and carries it from places such as power plants, wind farms and solar arrays to houses, hospitals and public transit systems. “You can’t just experiment with a power system and hope that it works,” Deane says. Getting power where it is it needed when it is needed is an intricate process, and there is little room for error, as incidents involving Russian hackers targeting U.S. utilities have highlighted for operators worldwide.

Crucial to this mission is grid interconnection. Linked systems can share electricity across vast areas, often using HVDC technology, so that a surplus of energy generated in one location can meet demand in another. “More interconnection means we can move power around more quickly, more efficiently, more cost effectively and take advantage of low-carbon or zero-carbon power sources,” says James Glynn, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. But connecting these massive networks with many moving parts is no small order.

One of the primary challenges of interconnecting grids is synchronizing them, which is what Ukrenergo, Moldelectrica and ENTSO-E accomplished last week. Synchronization is essential for sharing electricity. The task involves aligning the frequencies of every energy-generation facility in the connecting systems. Frequency is like the heartbeat of the electric grid. Across Europe, energy-generating turbines spin 50 times per second in near-perfect unison, and when disputes disrupt that balance, slow clocks across Europe can result, reminding operators of the stakes. For Ukraine and Moldova to join in, their systems had to be adjusted to match that rhythm. “We can’t stop the power system for an hour and then try to synchronize,” Deane says. “This has to be done while the system is operating.” It is like jumping onto a moving train or a spinning ride at the playground: the train or ride is not stopping, so you had better time the jump perfectly.

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Electricity System Climate Resilience underpins grid reliability amid heatwaves and drought, integrating solar, wind, hydropower, nuclear, storage, and demand response with efficient transmission, flexibility, and planning to secure power for homes, industry, and services.

Key Points

Power systems capacity to endure extreme weather and integrate clean energy, maintaining reliability and flexibility.

✅ Grid hardening, transmission upgrades, and digital forecasting.

✅ Flexible low-carbon supply: hydropower, nuclear, storage.

✅ Demand response, efficient cooling, and regional integration.

Summer is just half done in the northern hemisphere and yet we are already seeing electricity systems around the world struggling to cope with the severe strain of heatwaves and low rainfall.

These challenges highlight the urgent need for strong and well-planned policies and investments to improve the security of our electricity systems, which supply power to homes, offices, factories, hospitals, schools and other fundamental parts of our economies and societies. This means making our electricity systems more resilient to the effects of global warming – and more efficient and flexible as they incorporate rising levels of solar and wind power, as solar is now the cheapest electricity in history according to the IEA, which will be critical for reaching net-zero emissions in time to prevent even worse impacts from climate change.

A range of different countries, including the US, Canada and Iraq, have been hard hit by extreme weather recently in the form of unusually high temperatures. In North America, the heat soared to record levels in the Pacific Northwest. An electricity watchdog says that five US regions face elevated risks to the security of their electricity supplies this summer, underscoring US grid climate risks that could worsen, and that California’s risk level is even higher.

Heatwaves put pressure on electricity systems in multiple ways. They increase demand as people turn up air conditioning, driving higher US electricity bills for many households, and as some appliances work harder to maintain cool temperatures. At the same time, higher temperatures can also squeeze electricity supplies by reducing the efficiency and capacity of traditional thermal power plants, such as coal, natural gas and nuclear. Extreme heat can reduce the availability of water for cooling plants or transporting fuel, forcing operators to reduce their output. In some cases, it can result in power plants having to shut down, increasing the risk of outages. If the heat wave is spread over a wide geographic area, it also reduces the scope for one region to draw on spare capacity from its neighbours, since they have to devote their available resources to meeting local demand.

A recent heatwave in Texas forced the grid operator to call for customers to raise their thermostats’ temperatures to conserve energy. Power generating companies suffered outages at much higher rates than expected, providing an unwelcome reminder of February’s brutal cold snap when outages – primarily from natural gas power plants – left up to 5 million customers across the US without power over a period of four days.

At the same time, lower than average rainfall and prolonged dry weather conditions are raising concerns about hydropower’s electricity output in various parts of the world, including Brazil, China, India and North America. The risks that climate change brings in the form of droughts adds to the challenges faced by hydropower, the world’s largest source of clean electricity, highlighting the importance of developing hydropower resources sustainably and ensuring projects are climate resilient.

The recent spate of heatwaves and unusually long dry spells are fresh warnings of what lies ahead as our climate continues to heat up: an increase in the scale and frequency of extreme weather events, which will cause greater impacts and strains on our energy infrastructure.

Heatwaves will increase the challenge of meeting electricity demand while also decarbonizing the electricity supply. Today, the amount of energy used for cooling spaces – such as homes, shops, offices and factories – is responsible for around 1 billion tonnes of global CO2 emissions. In particular, energy for cooling can have a major impact on peak periods of electricity demand, intensifying the stress on the system. Since the energy demand used for air conditioners worldwide could triple by 2050, these strains are set to grow unless governments introduce stronger policy measures to improve the energy efficiency of air conditioning units.

Electricity security is crucial for smooth energy transitions
Many countries around the world have announced ambitious targets for reaching net-zero emissions by the middle of this century and are seeking to step up their clean energy transitions. The IEA’s recent Global Roadmap to Net Zero by 2050 makes it clear that achieving this formidable goal will require much more electricity, much cleaner electricity and for that electricity to be used in far more parts of our economies than it is today. This means electricity reaching much deeper into sectors such as transport (e.g. EVs), buildings (e.g. heat-pumps) and industry (e.g. electric-arc steel furnaces), and in countries like New Zealand's electrification plans it is accelerating broader efforts. As clean electricity’s role in the economy expands and that of fossil fuels declines, secure supplies of electricity become ever-more important. This is why the climate resilience of the electricity sector must be a top priority in governments’ policy agendas.

Changing climate patterns and more frequent extreme weather events can hit all types of power generation sources. Hydropower resources typically suffer in hot and dry conditions, but so do nuclear and fossil fuel power plants. These sources currently help ensure electricity systems have the flexibility and capacity to integrate rising shares of solar and wind power, whose output can vary depending on the weather and the time of day or year.

As governments and utilities pursue the decarbonization of electricity systems, mainly through growing levels of solar and wind, and carbon-free electricity options, they need to ensure they have sufficiently robust and diverse sources of flexibility to ensure secure supplies, including in the event of extreme weather events. This means that the possible decommissioning of existing power generation assets requires careful assessments that take into account the importance of climate resilience.

Ensuring electricity security requires long-term planning and stronger policy action and investment
The IEA is committed to helping governments make well-informed decisions as they seek to build a clean and secure energy future. With this in mind, here are seven areas for action for ensuring electricity systems are as resilient as possible to climate risks:

1. Invest in electricity grids to make them more resilient to extreme weather. Spending today is far below the levels needed to double the investment for cleaner, more electrified energy systems, particularly in emerging and developing economies. Economic recovery plans from the COVID-19 crisis offer clear opportunities for economies that have the resources to invest in enhancing grid infrastructure, but much greater international efforts are required to mobilize and channel the necessary spending in emerging and developing economies.

2. Improve the efficiency of cooling equipment. Cost-effective technology already exists in most markets to double or triple the efficiency of cooling equipment. Investing in higher efficiency could halve future energy demand and reduce investment and operating costs by $3 trillion between now and 2050. In advance of COP26, the Super-Efficient Equipment and Appliance Deployment (SEAD) initiative is encouraging countries to sign up to double the energy efficiency of equipment sold in their countries by 2030.

3. Enable the growth of flexible low-carbon power sources to support more solar and wind. These electricity generation sources include hydropower and nuclear, for countries who see a role for one or both of them in their energy transitions. Guaranteeing hydropower resilience in a warming climate will require sophisticated methods and tools – such as the ones implemented in Brazil – to calculate the necessary level of reserves and optimize management of reservoirs and hydropower output even in exceptional conditions. Batteries and other forms of storage, combined with solar or wind, can also provide important amounts of flexibility by storing power and releasing it when needed.

4. Increase other sources of electricity system flexibility. Demand-response and digital technologies can play an important role. The IEA estimates that only a small fraction of the huge potential for demand response in the buildings sector is actually tapped at the moment. New policies, which associate digitalization and financial behavioural incentives, could unlock more flexibility. Regional integration of electricity systems across national borders can also increase access to flexible resources.

5. Expedite the development and deployment of new technologies for managing extreme weather threats. The capabilities of electricity utilities in forecasting and situation awareness should be enhanced with the support of the latest information and communication technologies.

6. Make climate resilience a central part of policy-making and system planning. The interconnected nature of recent extreme weather events reminds us that we need to account for many contingencies when planning resilient power systems. Climate resilience should be integral to policy-making by governments and power system planning by utilities and relevant industries, and debates over Canadian climate policy underscore how grid implications must be considered. According to the recent IEA report on climate resilience, only nine out of 38 IEA member and association countries include concrete actions on climate adaptation and resilience for every segment of electricity systems.

7. Strengthen international cooperation on electricity security. Electricity underpins vital services and basic needs, such as health systems, water supplies and other energy industries. Maintaining a secure electricity supply is thus of critical importance. The costs of doing nothing in the face of growing climate threats are becoming abundantly clear. The IEA is working with all countries in the IEA family, as well as others around the world, by providing unrivalled data, analysis and policy advice on electricity security issues. It is also bringing governments together at various levels to share experiences and best practices, and identify how to hasten the shift to cleaner and more resilient energy systems.

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BC Hydro Review Phase 2 Recommendations advance affordable electricity rates, clean energy adoption, electrification, and demand response, supporting heat pumps, EV charging, and low-income programs to cut emissions and meet CleanBC climate targets.

Key Points

Policies to keep rates affordable and accelerate clean electrification via heat pump, EV, and demand response incentives.

✅ Optional rates, heat pump and EV charging incentives

✅ Demand response via controllable devices lowers peak loads

✅ Expanded support for lower-income customers and affordability

The Province and BC Hydro have released recommendations from Phase 2 of the BC Hydro Review to keep rates affordable, including through a provincial rate freeze initiative that supported households, and encourage greater use of clean, renewable electricity to reduce emissions and achieve climate targets.

“Keeping life affordable for people is a key priority of our government,” said Bruce Ralston, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation. “Affordable electricity rates not only help British Columbians, they help ensure the price of electricity remains competitive with other forms of energy, supporting the transition away from fossil fuels to clean electricity in our homes and buildings, vehicles and businesses.”

While affordable rates have always been important to BC Hydro customers, amid proposals such as a modest rate increase under review, expectations are also changing as customers look to have more choice and control over their electricity use and opportunities to save money.

Guided by input from a panel of external energy industry experts, government and BC Hydro have developed recommendations under Phase 2 of the BC Hydro Review to reduce electricity costs for individuals and businesses, even as a 3.75% increase has been discussed, as envisioned by the CleanBC climate strategy. This is also in alignment with TogetherBC, the Province’s poverty reduction strategy, and its guiding principle of affordability.

“As we promote increased use of electricity in B.C. to achieve our climate targets, we need to continue to focus on keeping electricity rates affordable, especially for lower-income families,” said Nicholas Simons, Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. “Through the BC Hydro Review, and continuing engagement with stakeholders and organizations to follow, we are committed to finding ways to keep rates affordable, so everyone has access to the benefits of B.C.’s clean, reliable electricity.”

Recommendations include having BC Hydro consider providing more support for lower-income BC Hydro customers, informed by a recent surplus report that highlighted funding opportunities. These include incentives and exploring optional rates for customers to adopt electric heat pumps, and facilitating customer adoption of controllable energy devices that provide BC Hydro the ability to offer incentives in return for helping to manage a customer’s electricity use. 

Electrification of B.C.’s economy helps customers reduce their carbon footprint and supports the Province’s CleanBC climate strategy, and is an important part of keeping electricity affordable even amid higher BC Hydro rates in recent periods. As more customers make the switch from fossil fuels to using clean electricity in their homes, vehicles and businesses, BC Hydro’s electricity sales will increase, providing more revenue that helps keep rates affordable for everyone.

“We’re making the transition to a cleaner future more affordable for people and businesses across British Columbia through our CleanBC plan,” said George Heyman, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. “By working with BC Hydro and other partners, we’re making sure everyone has access to clean, affordable electricity to power technologies like high-efficiency heat pumps and electric vehicles that will reduce harmful pollution and improve our homes, buildings and communities.”

Chris O’Riley, president and CEO, BC Hydro, said: “Given the impact of COVID-19 on British Columbians, affordability is more important than ever. That’s why we are committed to continuing to keep rates affordable and offering customers more options that allow them to save on their bills while using clean electricity.”

In July 2021, the Province announced a first set of recommendations from Phase 2 of the BC Hydro Review amid a 3% rate increase approved by regulators. The next announcement from Phase 2 will include recommendations to increase the number of electric vehicles on the road.

In addition, as part of the Draft Action Plan to advance the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, the Province is proposing to engage with Indigenous peoples to identify and support new clean energy opportunities related to CleanBC, the BC Hydro Review and the British Columbia Utilities Commission Indigenous Utilities Regulation Inquiry, and to consider lessons from Ontario's hydro policy experiences as appropriate.

B.C. is the cleanest electricity-generation jurisdiction in western North America, with an average of 98% of its electricity generation coming from clean or renewable resources.

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