Natural Resources Committee on Sept. 27th, 2017

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Well, it's quite far north, and it would require additional transmission capacity, for sure.

[Malcolm Metcalfe]

Well, it's interesting because, if you go beyond about 600 miles, it becomes much more expensive because it's very difficult to transmit AC current over long distances or, to put it in technical terms, more than a quarter of a wavelength. B.C. Hydro chose to add series capacitors in lines everywhere. Hydro-Québec chose to isolate themselves completely from the U.S. and connect only with DC.

My suspicion is that, if you were to look at the cost-benefit ratio, you would be better off focusing on renewables in the south and interties with Manitoba rather than a long, long transmission line to the north.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I guess, given—

[Malcolm Metcalfe]

That's based on lack of real knowledge.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

—that Manitoba is already paying for the long transmission lines.... It's the Churchill River. It's the same river between the two provinces where a dam could be built.

[Malcolm Metcalfe]

Yes, but notice that their lines are DC lines. They run on direct current, and they're quite expensive.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thanks very much for your very good insight.

I also want to ask about solar, given that Saskatchewan is the sunniest province. I suppose, as was already mentioned by Mr. Metcalfe, Saskatchewan currently gets about one half of its electricity from coal, so the appeal of developing solar isn't simply for export to other jurisdictions. It's to actually replace thermal generation in our own province.

What would you see as the most important policy changes to enable more solar energy in Saskatchewan?

[Patrick Bateman]

The first thing I would mention for the members is that SaskPower is currently running a competitive procurement for a 10-megawatt solar farm. That will deliver price discovery for how much solar electricity will cost in Canada. We feel that people will be quite astounded by how low and how cost-competitive it's going to be.

Competitive procurement is an important part of utility scale. It ensures that people sharpen their pencils and deliver the best value for money.

I also expect that SaskPower is going to be producing or considering potentially developing new programs to enable households and communities to get more involved as well. Our challenges from climate change are big and real. There's a lot of investment that's going to flow from corporations, but there's also a lot of investment that can be leveraged from small businesses, from households, and from communities. Policies that enable those people to invest and to get engaged with this are very important.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Having SaskPower as a publicly owned crown corporation is definitely a huge advantage for Saskatchewan. It's a very strong policy tool in developing renewable power without having to overpay private providers in the way that Ontario may have done through the Green Energy Act.

Could you speak to the relative appeal of the type of large-scale solar farm that you described versus small-scale distributed solar, which is essentially people putting panels up on their roofs?

[Patrick Bateman]

I see a lot of appeal in all scales. They fulfill different functions and different roles.

For large-scale generation, you can site it in a location. Solar is very scalable. Whereas, for instance, with a hydro dam you need a suitable river or whatever the case may be, with solar you can put it anywhere. The solar resource in Saskatchewan is really excellent throughout. The first benefit of large scale is, if you need generation somewhere and you want to minimize spending on distribution or transmission, you can choose where to site it and put it there. That kind of scalability is probably the key benefit of the large-scale stuff.

The second is that you can require a great deal of control and visibility from a system operator's perspective. Rather than having multiple datasets coming in from a thousand different systems, you have one dataset coming in. That can make it easier in some instances for it to be integrated on the system. The same thing could be turned around and it could be said that there's also a variety of benefits on the distributed side, but those are two of the key ones on the large-scale side.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Shannon Stubbs]

Thank you.

Mr. Serré.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you to the witnesses for your presentations and the preparation for today.

I just want to, before we start, clarify some of the comments made in the last meeting regarding electricity pricing. I just want to quote from the comparison of electrical report issued by Hydro-Québec in April 2016. When we look at North American cities on residential consumer pricing, we see that Ottawa, for example, is at 16.15 cents per kilowatt hour. Toronto is at 17.8 cents per kilowatt hour, and then Boston is at 27 cents per kilowatt hour. Then we have Detroit at 20 cents per kilowatt hour, and Charlottetown at 16 cents per kilowatt hour. We also have New York at 29 cents per kilowatt hour. We have San Francisco at 31 cents per kilowatt hour. So we see here that Canadian pricing for electricity is still doing well and we have potential when we go to the exports.

I want to cite another report, from the Canadian Electricity Association, and I'd ask if you have any comments about this. It says, “Canada's access to renewable resources allows for some of the lowest residential electricity prices in the world.” Canada is at 10.5 U.S. cents per kilowatt hour, and this was done just two years ago. The U.S. is at 13 cents per kilowatt hour. The United Kingdom is at 22 cents per kilowatt hour. Japan is at 27 U.S. cents per kilowatt hour and Denmark is at 37 cents per kilowatt hour. Mexico is at less than 9 cents per kilowatt hour, but as we know there is not electricity all over in Mexico.

I just wanted to see if you have any comments relating to the Canadian electricity pricing and how that's competitive as we move to more interconnection with North America.

[Patrick Bateman]

I don't think I have a substantive comment, Mr. Serré. I apologize.

[Prof. Bryson Robertson]

A great question. I think there's a whole variety of factors that play into that. I can't talk to all the jurisdictions, but in the British Columbia perspective, our fuel costs for our generation are next to nothing. It's rain falling from the sky, whereas other jurisdictions that are fossil fuel generated still have a significant fuel cost.

In addition, British Columbia, as Mr. Metcalfe mentioned, benefits greatly from our ability to trade there. There's a significant benefit to the taxpayer and the ratepayer by allowing us to leverage California's need for power and to arbitrage that power, and that directly comes into our rate structure.

That's definitely a major player and why we have such reduced residential electricity prices. I think that shows across provinces. New York has significant ones. They just don't have the ability to get enough power in there fast enough. So that comes with a huge cost. You have a transmission cost that comes with transmitting this power. It depends on where the load is and where the resource is and then what that resource is.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you. Also, Mr. Robertson, you indicated, for example, that the east coast has an unreliable lack of infrastructure dollars spent there or...? But you also indicated how important it was for connectivity. It's key.

Again, Mr. Bateman, you indicated how important it is for better integration for renewable energy sectors.

Can you both comment on why that is important as we move forward for a more greener economy?

[Prof. Bryson Robertson]

Great question. Just to qualify my first statement, it was more for the small communities. In British Columbia, we have a lot of communities at the end of transmission lines along the coast with no local generations. They're reliant on the transmission grid to get them power. When you have winter storms and so on, they're often cut off and they'll spend a week or two without power. That was to qualify that. It's not on the large utility scale.

I apologize. The second part of your question was...?

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

The interconnection was key to moving forward.

[Prof. Bryson Robertson]

As we move towards renewable generation, the resources are in the locations they are in. It's no longer with fossil fuels, or that we can take coal or natural gas and transport it to generate power where we need it. Wind is only available where wind is, and the sun only shines where sun is. If we look at where the regional renewable resources are, we see that in British Columbia we have rain and mountains. In Alberta, they have great sun, and Saskatchewan has great sun. Alberta has great wind resources. We need to be able to take advantage of those, and as diversity allows us, connecting these diverse resources allows us to average out that variability. That's a big part of it. Each renewable on its own is inherently variable, and by being able to aggregate that, we come up with a much smoother signal that allows us to run our fossil fuel systems more efficiently at higher capacity and less, reducing our GHG emissions.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Bateman.

[Patrick Bateman]

I have nothing further to add to Mr. Robertson's response.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Robertson, you also talked about the expansion of tidal. Perhaps you could expand a bit on that. How important is it when you look at the marine renewable energy strategy? This is specifically with regard to tidal, to waves and so on.

[Prof. Bryson Robertson]

I would hope that Elisa Obermann from Marine Renewables Canada would be here to provide a better answer. I can tell you about our perspective on the west coast in the wave space, which is somewhat shared. As we get towards our deep decarbonization goals, as we want to try to meet our mid-term strategy, wind and solar will only get us so far. We're then going to rely on hydro, which requires significant interties, or we're going to start to rely on batteries. While there is a lot of great press around batteries, they are still exceptionally expensive, and they do come with an environmental footprint. If we can diversify our generation resources so that we don't have to store as much, that has huge value.

Tidal, for instance, is infinitely predictable. We can tell you exactly how much power will be generated in 2053 at two o'clock. That has value to the grid operator. When they're trying to decide what other resources to turn on so that the lights are on and everyone can run their air conditioners, being able to rely upon that tidal generation has value.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Shannon Stubbs]

Mr. Falk.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Robertson, I think I'll start with you. You talked a little bit about storing energy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that in its raw stage, you would store it on the backside of a hydro dam. Storage of produced electricity is difficult today.

You were just beginning to speak to that.