Wild weather tests utilities

POWER UTILITIES FORCED TO ADAPT AS CLIMATE CHANGE BRINGS WILDER WEATHER

The increasing intensity of storms that lead to massive power outages highlights the need for Canada’s electrical utilities to be more robust and innovative, climate change scientists say.

“We need to plan to be more resilient in the face of the increasing chances of these events occurring,” University of New Brunswick climate change scientist Louise Comeau said in a recent interview.

The East Coast was walloped this week by the third storm in as many days, with high winds toppling trees and even part of a Halifax church steeple. Nova Scotia Power says it has weathered nine storm days so far this year — up from four in the same period last year.

Significant weather events have consistently increased over the last five years, according to the Canadian Electricity Association (CEA), which has tracked such events since 2003.

Nearly a quarter of total outage hours nationally in 2016 — 22 per cent — were caused by two ice storms, a lightning storm, and the Fort McMurray fires, which the CEA said may or may not be classified as a climate event.

“It (climate change) is putting quite a lot of pressure on electricity companies coast to coast to coast to improve their processes and look for ways to strengthen their systems in the face of this evolving threat,” said Devin McCarthy, vice president of public affairs and U.S. policy for the CEA, which represents 40 utilities serving 14 million customers.

The 2016 figures — the most recent available — indicate the average Canadian customer experienced 3.1 outages and 5.66 hours of outage time.

McCarthy said electricity companies can’t just build their systems to withstand the worst storm they’d dealt with over the previous 30 years. They must prepare for worse.

“There needs to be a more forward looking approach, climate science led, that looks at what do we expect our system to be up against in the next 20, 30 or 50 years,” he said.