Natural Resources Committee on May 1st, 2018

[Patrick Bateman]

One example would be that there are currently more than 12 U.S. states that generate more than 35% of their annual electricity from solar and wind alone. They are able to do that by having very good resource data on a granular basis in terms of time-frequency and space, meaning squares of several kilometres. There's a need to balance the variability of this renewable fleet with other generation sources, with transmission interties, or with storage.

Again, in addition to cost, I think that from the perspective of the system operator, having that meteorological data available will certainly help them.

Another key theme here is that with the data sets available in different provinces, we are having duplication of efforts, with different groups trying to create them for their own purposes. I think some coordination at the national level would be extremely helpful, again, in this respect.

[Gord Johns]

What would your assessment be of the effectiveness and efficiency of the current data-sharing partnerships?

[Patrick Bateman]

I think that with respect to the electricity sector broadly, it's kind of at an intermediate stage. There are gaps, but there's a good basis. With respect to renewables and particularly the less established ones—wind, solar, and marine—we're really only getting started. We haven't had a strategy to date. We haven't identified our needs at the national basis, so we're much further behind than intermediate for those emerging technologies.

[Gord Johns]

In your opinion, is the statistical framework for energy in Canada sufficient to overcome current challenges related to energy data integration across Canada?

[Patrick Bateman]

Our answer would be no. I think that with the amount of investment in renewables that we're expecting to see over the next decade, we should really be accelerating the data that we have to ensure that those decisions are made wisely over the decade ahead and beyond.

[Gord Johns]

Can you speak about some of the subsidies in the States a little more, about what they've done to help support those operators there to be more viable and to grow the sector?

[Patrick Bateman]

In the United States, they've had an investment tax credit that covers 30% of capital costs for both wind and solar. For wind, there's also a production tax credit. I'm less familiar with the subsidies for hydro or for marine, but the ITC has been the single largest subsidy for renewables in the United States in comparison to Canada. We have not had anything comparable to date.

[Gord Johns]

What is the highest in Canada that would be comparable?

[Patrick Bateman]

At the national level, we have the accelerated capital cost allowance, which was recently extended from ending in 2020 to ending in 2025. That means that the accelerated depreciation is going to take place at a 50% rate, as opposed to a 30% rate. Our calculation is the difference between the 50% and 30% amounts to about a decrease of about 3% or less for wind or solar. There are also restrictions on who is able to benefit from that instrument. At the national level, from a nationwide perspective and from a tax perspective, there's limited support.

As Ms. Stubbs noted, there are a variety of different diversification funds and things, and the gas tax. With the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change, now we're beginning to see new funds—such as the low carbon economy challenge fund, where various proponents will compete for funding—and also a variety of programs that are targeted to specific sectors, including municipalities or indigenous communities and so on.

[Gord Johns]

What recommendations might you have to improve the federal government's current open data management practices?

[Patrick Bateman]

I have two very quick ones. The first would be to make the decision to fulfill that central role and to begin to implement it. The second would be broad stakeholder engagement so that we can ensure that the scoping is right and that the agency can grow to meet the needs of the industry.

[Gord Johns]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Serré is next.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with Peter. He will be asking the first question.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My question is for Mr. Birn. You mentioned the complex web of sources of data, and you identified that as a problem. You talked about the, in essence, fractured nature of data collection in Canada and how data is kept both by provinces and by the federal government, which can lead to duplication.

Australia has the same sort of problem. There's a federal data repository, and then data is kept at the state level in Queensland, in New South Wales, in Tasmania, and so on and so forth. Australia is a federation, so perhaps there's no surprise there.

You also mentioned the U.S. EIA and spoke very positively of it. The United States is a federation. Is there no problem of the sort of complex web that you've identified here in Canada, the fractured nature of data collection? Does it not exist in the United States?

[Kevin Birn]

I don't use U.S. data as much as Canadian data, but, yes, that does exist in the United States. Prior to the U.S. EIA's formation, there were a multitude of agencies at the federal level that collected data. That was one of the reasons the EIA was brought in. It was also brought in in response to the Iranian oil embargo and all that stuff to provide better clarity.

There is state-level data that we make use of, North Dakota's and others, but my understanding is there were more nascent oil-producing regions at the beginning, and when they began the process of collecting data, the EIA was there to help them to ensure alignment at that point in time. There are similarities, but it's temporally different. They're in a different place, because the EIA has been around for so long at this point. It is a clearing house of data for the U.S. in energy, but it is also a fundamentally a different market. It's one of the world's largest energy-consuming regions. We are not, so it's a little bit different.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thanks very much.

I asked the question because of the three federations. There is clearly a complex web in Canada and I mentioned Australia, but the U.S. situation, I think, stood out as interesting to me.

I'll pass along any remaining time to my colleague.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you to the two witnesses for your time and your presentations.

I'll be asking my first questions to Mr. Birn.

You indicated your four recommendations, and thank you for that. We've already implemented the first one. The U.S. administrators of EIA are coming here on Thursday as witnesses.

The second one was on the provincial jurisdiction. Obviously we could spend a lot of time on that one and we need to focus on that, but I want to turn to your third and fourth recommendations to expand a bit more.

In your third recommendation, you indicated we need to focus on more than just data, on the expertise required and on accessibility. I just want to give you an opportunity here to expand more specifically on specific recommendations you would have for us on that third recommendation.

[Kevin Birn]

Thank you. It's a good question.

It's one thing to go through the process of saying you need to collect data and you need alignment, but you need the human capital to understand what the issues are around alignment, to look at a data set and recognize that there are gaps or that maybe it's not picking up what you intended to be picked up. That's purely what it meant.

Then to take it one step further, at times—and the NEB and NRCan and Statistics Canada have done this in the past—you have to look at what the data means. It's one thing to have a series that runs 100 years in time on maybe oil prices, but what does it mean? What can you extrapolate for what your question may be or to help the public understand the data? That's what the expertise commentary was really about—being able to understand and appreciate the data, design the series, and anticipate the data needed in the future as well. I think we've heard a lot about that today.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

In your fourth recommendation, you also indicated that you look at the National Energy Board, Statistics Canada, and NRCan. In gathering some of this data, from your perspective is there one of these agencies that should be leading the data collection? How do you see that national data collection happening from a federal perspective?

[Kevin Birn]

Statistics Canada has a standing mandate to do that. They have the capability to do it. How it's accessed by the public is a different question, I think, and where the best portal is. You do have Statistics Canada and the NEB collecting different data, and it does mean that you have to search between them.

I will be honest: CANSIM, in its day, was world-leading, but now it's kind of awkward. You can go in there and find a hundred different series of the same thing. We can't all be experts in this stuff, so it needs to be made more accessible to the public and it has to be simplified.

As an example, the EIA has stated before that they needed to convey the data much more simply. Next week you'll probably hear from the EIA that it takes a lot of expertise to do that, but they are also very focused on that customer service angle as well in the delivery of user-friendly interfaces.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Bateman, from a renewable perspective with regard to data, we've heard there's not a lot of real-time data and that there are issues with collecting, but my question more specifically is the provincial collection of data versus federal agencies and regulators.

What have been your challenges, and do you have any recommendations to us relating to that collection of data?

[Patrick Bateman]

With respect to market data, CanSIA has partnered with CanmetENERGY over the course of the last decade or so to generate the data for solar, because it was not available otherwise. We have begun to discuss with the National Energy Board whether it may wish to take that role in the future. Our experience has been that the patchwork is not a barrier that can't be overcome; it just requires coordination and ensuring that the processes are in place to ensure it's available.

With respect to resource data and meteorological data, that's a more technical consideration, one that varies more from sector to sector within renewables. The previous witness discussed some of the geological mapping across Canada and similar types of things, but different map layers would be of benefit to each of the different renewable sectors as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. McColeman, we have about two minutes left.

[Phil McColeman, Brantford—Brant, CPC]

I can't do a lot in two minutes, but I'll express my bias.

I live in Ontario and I'm from a manufacturing community. Recently I met with a company in my riding that is moving out of Ontario because it is losing 400 manufacturing jobs to Michigan. Are you aware of the data set that Ontario used to put in its energy regime on renewables? Are you aware of where it got that data?

It was a political decision, I know. I'm not asking about right or wrong here. What was used to make the decision to go down the road, so that we have some of the highest energy prices in North America?