Future looks dry for big hydro projects

RENEWABLES

electricity, compared with 79,000MW today.

As large-scale hydropower projects face some resistance, wind and solar are set to grow rapidly as their costs continue to fall.

Wind capacity in Canada increased 20-fold between 2005 and 2015, according to the NEB, and accounted for 7.7 per cent of total electricity capacity in 2015. Solar accounted for 1.5 per cent.

As Canada’s dependence on renewable sources like solar and wind grows — albeit gradually — governments are now grappling with how to build the highvoltage transmission lines that would be needed to offset intermittency.

“There is potential for wind, but the question there is what are the costs, and that cost-benefit calculation becomes very complicated when you have to factor in things like new transmission capacity to get that more-regional dispersion,” Fellows said.

Substituting intermittent power supplies with more stable ones is vastly more costly in Canada than in higher-density countries like Denmark, which generates more than 50 per cent of its electricity from wind power.

In January, researchers at the University of Ottawa’s Institute of the Environment released a report that analyzed the long-term cost savings of building high-voltage connecting lines between several hydro-rich and hydropoor regions — for example between Alberta and British Columbia.

“We found that you can achieve emission reductions at a lower cost if you build those transmission lines, and that’s including the cost of construction,” said Brett Dolter, a report author.

Canada produced roughly 10 per cent of hydro capacity worldwide in 2015, second only to China at 29 per cent, the NEB data shows. Brazil and the U.S. produced nine per cent and eight per cent, respectively. Canada’s proportion of electricity generated by renewables is the sixthhighest in the world behind Denmark, Norway, Brazil, Austria and New Zealand. Only 12 countries generate more than half of their electricity from renewable supplies. The new hydroelectric facility at Muskrat Falls, N.L., under construction in 2015. Despite Canada becoming the No. 2 hydro producer in the world, future mega-projects seem in doubt, analysts say.