Natural Resources committee  First of all, I would point out that I have toured the IESO. I have worked with them a lot. They're wonderful people, and the control centre is really worth seeing. In the Ontario situation, the tie-lines to the U.S. are used heavily. One of the reasons that the comment has been

Natural Resources committee  No, I don't think it's that difficult. I actually think you could put a strong DC tie-line between Quebec and Ontario, a strong DC tie-line between, perhaps, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and more AC tie-lines between Alberta and B.C., because somebody has already discussed the pote

Natural Resources committee  Sure. The AC lines are excellent for short distances of up to perhaps 1,000 miles. If you get anything beyond that, you have to deal with stability issues. With DC transmission, you can go a very long way. One of the longest lines we have in North America goes from Los Angeles t

Natural Resources committee  That's a great question. Actually, at the time that happened, BC Hydro was developing northern transmission, and they made the decision to spend the money to remain connected solidly to the U.S. at all times. Hydro-Québec looked at the same problem and decided that they would i

Natural Resources committee  Saskatchewan has a largely thermally based system. If you run it at a constant load, it's reasonably efficient. But if you run it up and down—which they have to do in order to match the load because the generation always has to be the same as the amount of load—it becomes much le

Natural Resources committee  How far north is it?

Natural Resources committee  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

Natural Resources committee  That's based on lack of real knowledge.

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

Natural Resources committee  Okay.

Natural Resources committee  I would actually take a slight issue with the value because California, as an example right now, is looking at an intertie, or at a ramp rate of 30,000 megawatts over a few hours, as the solar comes on and goes off in the morning and evening. Therefore, what they're needing to do

Natural Resources committee  On the other hand, we're seeing people now putting in solar systems all over the U.S., installing them to reduce their costs. You have, then, two groups trying to optimize the same thing but coming to very different results. The net result is not a very happy one, in that the U

Natural Resources committee  That's fine; I was just going to say that I'm done.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much, Madam Vice-Chair and committee members. It's a real pleasure to have been invited to speak to you today. This topic is of critical importance to us all, and I'm happy to assist in whatever way that I can. I started a career in energy almost 60 years ago, wh