Evidence of meeting #16 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was use.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Renewable Energies
I'm sorry. I got thrown off track there a little bit.
The issue is yes, there would have to be subsidies if it's a government priority to have companies and individuals in the north. That was part of the reason for the statistics that I quoted. The use of appliances and lighting is exceptionally high in the north, whereas the consumption of energy for heating your home is not. I don't know why. I was simply stealing the statistics.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
I only have a minute left and I have one more question.
As far as you're aware, can you tell us anything about Canada's use of renewable energy in the north, compared with other countries in the world that might have some best practices in the northern parts of their nations?
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Renewable Energies
My understanding is that we are behind the areas and countries of which I'm aware--northern Europe, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and northern Russia--as well as some of the Antarctic. I've also done a recent project on renewables in the Antarctic.
In terms of technologies that work well in cold climates, we don't have as many in Canada and we've attributed it to the fact that because conventional energy is subsidized, there is no need to adopt the implementation of renewables to the same degree that we should or could.
Conservative
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Our guest is very interesting, but I feel a bit like someone pleading a case before the Supreme Court. I am not sure the judges would have understood everything Mr. Eggertson said. My God, you talk fast! What you say is very interesting and extremely important. I tried to understand one thing, but I did not get an answer. I would like to know whether there is any way to improve things, to reduce energy consumption in the north. Energy there usually comes from non-renewable sources like diesel. I may not have caught everything you said, and I am not blaming the interpreters, because I know they worked hard.
Are there any plans to use something other than non-renewable sources, such as wind turbines, for example? Is there anything else?
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Renewable Energies
There are quite a few experimental prototype and small-scale renewable energy installations in the north.
Bloc
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Renewable Energies
I do not know exactly where.
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Renewable Energies
It will take me a long time if I talk in French.
There were some bad experiences. I have been able to discern from the literature that the utilities up north were burnt, if I can use that. They had problems with early wind turbines, and they are shy of implementing the technologies now.
Renewables are not perfect technologies. Wind turbines don't work if the wind is not blowing. Solar doesn't work if the sun is not shining. Many of them--geothermal, solar, biomass, etc.--do work. They are what are called dispatchable energy sources because they work whenever you want them to, but there has been a bad track record in northern Canada, and people are reluctant to get into it.
Again, there is a higher level of subsidy of the conventional energy prices up north. It is not market driven. I don't think any energy pricing in Canada is market driven. It does not reflect all of the variables. The Arctic just tends to be more highly subsidized, so again there's less incentive for investors to get into that. There is no payback, and they don't have some of the programs that we do.
On my house we've just installed 10,000 watts of solar panels under the Ontario microFIT program. It pays 80¢ a kilowatt hour for every kilowatt hour that is generated while I'm down here and my house is sitting at home. I'm getting 80¢. That is a very strong incentive for me and for others to get into solar. The resource doesn't exist to that degree in the Arctic.
I was dealing with Gilbert Parent, the former ambassador of the environment. He was an indigenous Canadian. He wanted a huge wind farm just south of 60, meaning northern Manitoba or northern Saskatchewan. I was consulting with him, and I said, “How are you going to get the power down to Toronto, which is where the power is needed?” It's a little bit like LG 2. You've had to invest billions of dollars for the transmission infrastructure to get it down to Montreal from La Grande.
From the Arctic it's a problem. There are reasons that they don't export the renewable power. I'm arguing there are no reasons for them not to generate and produce the renewable energy there and use it there, which, as many of these case studies from the INAC publication show, can be done cost-effectively.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
I am very concerned. What you say is very interesting, but also very disturbing. You are saying that people living in the north are at a disadvantage and will always have to produce their electricity, for example, from non-renewable energy. That is sad.
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Renewable Energies
Northern residents need to use less electricity and whenever possible get off electricity. I don't know how they heat their water.
We are very upset with southern Canadians who use electricity, which is a high-quality energy carrier, to heat water to 30°C or heat their houses to 20°C. It's insane, in our opinion, when you can get a range of renewable energy technologies that will do it.
You are correct that the north does not have as many resources as the south. The sun doesn't shine as brightly or as strongly as it does in the south. Wind will work up north. Why they haven't gone into wind turbines up there more, I don't know. They've used small hydro in Mayo and in a large number of the northern communities. Small hydro works. Geothermal works extremely well.
There have been problems. Again, the early technology needed a lot of hand-holding, a lot of labour and maintenance, and there weren't the trained people up north to do it. When something went wrong, it would take weeks for somebody to get a float plane or whatever transportation to bring a southern mechanic up to fix the machine. You can only take that so many times before you say, “Tant pis. We're not going to use the technology”.
There have been some problems. I think it's time to turn the page and to get them back onto the page the rest of the world is on.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
Thank you, Mr. Lemay.
Now we'll go to Mr. Bevington for seven minutes.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to Mr. Eggertson. I remember your newsletter, which came out for many years.
I'm just a little concerned with your figures on household consumption of energy in the north. You said the north represents 0.2% of houses in Canada.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
That would be one out of every five hundred houses in Canada, right?
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
Then you said we used one billion kilowatt hours per year in those houses, right?
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Renewable Energies
Yes. It's versus 400 billion in all of Canada. It works out to the same ratio.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
It's 400 billion for 500 parts and one billion for one part. I have a little trouble with the figures, because they don't seem to add up.
It doesn't fit in terms of what I know about the north and energy use, especially on the heating side. The heating side is huge. For houses, you measure it by temperature. There's a temperature gradient measurement that you use for heating. It's extremely high compared to southern Canada. There are longer seasons and colder temperatures.
This committee has seen the work that's been going on in Yellowknife with the conversion to wood pellets. It's turned out to be highly successful. Many large buildings have been converted to wood pellets. They're coming in at half the cost of conventional fuel. It's considered to be green energy. Is that correct?
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Renewable Energies
Yes. It depends on the tree that you're using for the pellets.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
These come from sawmill waste in northern Alberta.
Does the federal government have any program now for the conversion of buildings and homes to wood pellets, when we have very successful examples of these conversions in Yellowknife and in the Northwest Territories?
Executive Director, Canadian Association for Renewable Energies
I am more familiar with the southern ecoENERGY program than with some of the details on the northern one. They don't allow an incentive or support for individual residential homes, but they do for commercial buildings.
If you were to set up district heating, Oujé-Bougoumou in northern Quebec probably has one of the most famous wood pellet systems. There are quite a few around the country. If you set it up, you will get a subsidy from the federal government to displace conventional oil, gas, or propane.