New plan includes a range of measures to ensure Canada’s electricity systems reach “net zero emissions” before 2050.
OTTAWA – Canada’s national association of waterpower producers today applauded the Government of Canada’s bold and ambitious new climate plan that places clean and renewable electricity at the center of a strategy to meet and exceed the nation’s 2030 target.
The plan, A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy, earmarks a range of expanded commitments to facilitate increased clean power generation, and boost transmission capacity within and between provinces. The plan also commits to widespread electrification, including getting more zero-emissions vehicles on the roads, and chargers to support them.
WaterPower Canada also applauds the proposal to ensure that the pollution price on greenhouse gas emissions continues to grow. This type of price signal can be the most efficient and effective way to drive affordable emission reductions within Canada over time.
The following statements may be attributed to Patrick Bateman, Interim President of WaterPower Canada:
“Waterpower is Canada’s clean energy powerhouse, and this new plan provides markets with the certainty needed to bolster new investments in major clean and renewable energy infrastructure projects, with significant job creation potential.”
“WaterPower Canada shares the government’s vision that Canada’s electricity generation can achieve net-zero emissions before 2050. Hydropower can be the reliable backbone for the electricity sector to achieve this goal while electrifying the nation’s buildings, vehicles, and industries”.
Quick facts on Canada’s Waterpower sector:
- Waterpower is the dominant source of electricity in Canada, in 2019 it supplied 61 per cent of total electricity generation. Canada is the third largest waterpower producer globally.
- According the the International Renewable Energy Agency, Canada is in the top 10 countries worldwide for waterpower jobs, and more than half of all renewable energy jobs are on the waterpower sector.
Quick facts on the Climate Plan’s implications for the electricity sector:
- Doubles or triples non-emitting power generation, and doubles the percentage of final energy use served by electricity by 2050.
- Decreases GHGs from the electricity sector by 91% by 2030 (from 119 to 11 Mt), and achieves a net-zero emissions grid before 2050.
- Carbon pricing would be central to driving this decarbonisation with a carbon price that increases predictably and steadily in amount ($/t) and coverage (t/GWh).
- Energy efficiency and electrification measures, and the Clean Fuel Standard liquid fuels stream would reduce energy use, and then increase the proportion of that energy that is served by clean electricity.
- Investments would include an additional $300 million over five years to displace diesel in rural, remote and Indigenous communities.
- The federal government would also work with provinces and territories on key intertie projects (such as the “Atlantic Loop” intertie project, and the Clean BC Plan).