Of all the years of political spin to justify construction of the Site C dam, last week’s media briefing about BC Hydro might get a special place in the hall of fame.

On Thursday, provincial media were invited to the underground theatre at the B.C. Legislature for a “technical briefing” on the first phase of a review of BC Hydro, a public utility so deeply indebted that it’s been flirting with bankruptcy.

For the next 30 minutes or so, media were treated to a shock and awe presentation with a barrage of slides, graphs, numbers and various claims about B.C.’s energy demand and the price of different renewables.

It all bolstered the NDP government’s messaging, rolled out the previous evening in an exclusive story placed in the Vancouver Sun, that contracts the previous Liberal government signed with independent power producers have led to staggering losses for BC Hydro and that the Liberals had manufactured a need for new power.

“The reason Site C is something we are going to need in the future is because it’s firm power,” B.C. Energy Minister Michelle Mungall nevertheless told the Sun in an interview that accompanied the story about the government’s report on independent power projects (IPPs), titled Zapped.

The IPP contracts, Mungall informed media after the technical briefing, were a “sweetheart deal for some” but not a good deal for British Columbians who had “overpaid billions of dollars for power.”

How ironic then, that the NDP government opted for a sweetheart deal for itself when it announced just over a year ago that construction of the Site C dam would continue.

It punted the question of how to pay for the project’s unsightly $10.7 billion tab to a future government, passing the buck to generations of future hydro customers while appeasing its construction trades union donors that had lobbied relentlessly for construction to proceed.

The result is that the NDP is now doing precisely what its report justifiably criticizes the Liberals for doing with IPPs — manufacturing a need for Site C’s power while saddling generations of British Columbians with a project which will produce energy that cannot be sold for even close to the price it will cost to produce it.

Construction on the Site C dam in the summer of 2018. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

In January, the conservative C.D. Howe Institute issued a report outlining why Site C — along with the Keeyask dam in Manitoba — is “uneconomical” and should be terminated immediately.

“For projects like Site C and Keeyask, it is not too late to cancel,” said the report, Dammed If You Do: How Sunk Costs Are Dragging Canadian Electricity Ratepayers Underwater.

“The sooner provinces face reality and begin negotiating reasonable cancellation programs, the better off ratepayers will be.”

But now the NDP is recharging efforts to convince British Columbians that Site C’s power is needed and that the troubled project is a bargain, even though the dam’s cost has soared by more than $4 billion since it was announced in 2010 and, according to an independent review, could exceed $12.5 billion.

In 2017, the independent B.C. Utilities Commission concluded that a renewables portfolio, including wind and geothermal, could supply the equivalent power of Site C for $8.8 billion or less, calling BC Hydro’s energy forecasts “excessively optimistic.”

Those forecasts have been wrong for years, according to the Commercial Energy Consumers Association, which represents the province’s commercial sector and business interests. Power demand in the province has been stagnant since 2005, despite a growing population.

To fortify its case for the Site C dam, the NDP government mysteriously dropped the price of Site C power at the technical briefing, thus casting the project in a favourable light compared to other renewables, including independent power projects that could be a good deal for British Columbians.

Instead of costing $83 per megawatt hour, as BC Hydro stated when the Site C dam cost $2 billion less than it does now, Site C’s energy can now supposedly be produced for just $62 per megawatt hour, according to the technical briefing.

Wind power, on the other hand, costs between $70 to $105 per megawatt hour to produce in B.C., journalists were informed — which is odd indeed, because the Alberta government recently bought wind power for $37 per megawatt hour and wind power with storage is selling in the U.S. for US$21 per megawatt hour.

When asked about the discrepancy, the senior civil servants — who can’t be named, according to the rules of the technical briefing — said it was because B.C.’s mountainous terrain makes wind power much more expensive than in other jurisdictions.

Tell that to the Canadian Wind Energy Association, which pulled out of B.C. in 2016 as the Site C dam proceeded. Tell that to Northland Power, which recently constructed the North Sea’s largest offshore wind farm but, as Site C continued, withdrew from two proposed wind projects in B.C., one near Prince George and the other near Summerland, that had the combined capacity to produce half as much power as Site C.

And tell that to First Nations all over B.C. who are eager to join the global renewables revolution but who were shut out by the decision to proceed with the Site C dam — First Nations that had already invested in plans for clean energy projects were told last week that BC Hydro’s standing offer program was not just on hold but cancelled, because B.C. doesn’t need one more watt of power.

And then there’s solar energy. Solar just isn’t a good option for B.C., according to the senior bureaucrats at the technical briefing.

Yet the United Kingdom, not known for excessively sunny weather, has installed enough solar capacity to generate more than twice the amount of Site C’s energy.

A provincial government study found that northeast B.C., where the Site C dam will be built on the Peace River, is ideal for solar. Witness the town of Hudson’s Hope in the district that will be most severely affected by the Site C dam, which recently installed B.C.’s largest municipal solar array and will save an estimated $70,000 a year on its hydro bills as a result.

Curious, too, that BC Hydro recently changed the rules for people who install solar at their own expense.

Unlike other utilities, BC Hydro no longer wants to buy extra power from new solar installations — power the utility has purchased for about $100 per megawatt hour. Granted, those purchases alone don’t add up to anywhere near as much power as Site C would produce, but the price is a steal of a deal compared to Site C’s power, which experts like Eoin Finn, a former partner with the global accounting firm KPMG, peg at $120 or more per megawatt hour.

And let’s not forget that BC Hydro backed away from its energy conservation programs as Site C moved forward — programs that, according to BC Hydro’s former CEO and president, had saved about as much power as Site C will produce.

All the more puzzling, B.C. refuses to follow other jurisdictions and introduce time-of-use tariffs, which would further reduce energy demand.

As for Mungall’s claim that B.C. needs Site C because it is “firm” power, readily available any time, the vast majority of B.C.’s energy currently comes from non-run of river hydro.

That means we already have oodles of firm power, including from the W.A.C. Bennett dam, where water flows into the Peace River have been held back for several years for Site C construction — with the only harm done not to energy supply during cold snaps and heat waves but to Wood Buffalo National Park.

There’s also the “firm” Columbia River power, even more power than Site C would produce, that B.C. sells to the United States. The price the U.S. pays for that power? About $30 per megawatt hour.

But U.S. president Donald Trump thinks $30 per megawatt hour is far too high a cost, and his government has re-opened Columbia River Treaty negotiations in an effort to reduce it.

BC Hydro also has the option of using existing assets like the sixth generating unit at the Revelstoke Generating Station (Revelstoke 6) for additional firm power, if indeed it is ever needed.

Just over a year ago, B.C.’s NDP government said a taxpayer bailout of Site C’s $2 billion in sunk costs would result in “massive cuts to services” on which British Columbians depend (a claim that was immediately slammed by project financing experts and later revealed by The Narwhal to be something of a sham).

Yet on Thursday, the government announced a BC Hydro bailout of $1.1 billion with — wait for it  — no cuts to services.

An eight per cent rate hike over five years is now on offer from the NDP — provided the utilities commission accepts the government’s suggestion that eight per cent is sufficient to cover BC Hydro’s rising costs, let alone to start paying down Hydro’s remaining $4.4 billion debt.

Nor has the NDP ruled out another bailout for BC Hydro.

None of those initiatives, however, will pay for the Site C dam, the astronomical bill for which will only start to come due in approximately five years when the power comes on-line.

The C.D. Howe report takes aim at the NDP government’s assertion that it has no choice but to continue building the Site C dam due to the amount of money that had already been spent.

“Policymakers often justify proceeding with uneconomic projects due to the significant amount of money that has already been spent,” the report’s authors note, a phenomenon known as the “sunk cost fallacy.”

“However, the decision about whether to proceed with a project should be determined by the yet-to-be-spent costs, instead of costs already spent.”

The authors recommend that B.C. and Manitoba consider hiring skilled negotiators to “review all existing contracts and develop a pathway toward minimizing cancellation costs, identifying ways to recover value and exploring means of appropriately compensating key stakeholders such as First Nations.”

Even now, a combination of energy sources such as wind and natural gas, including projects with storage capacity “procured in smaller sizes closer to the period of demonstrated need, would be more cost-effective” than the Site C dam, the report concludes.

In Manitoba, an inquiry is now underway to determine why work continued on the hugely over-budget Keeyask dam even though its energy wasn’t needed. Ironically, that inquiry is being led by former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell, who was so determined to build the Site C dam that his government changed the law to remove the B.C. Utilities Commission from determining if the project was in the financial interests of British Columbians.

Likewise, in Newfoundland, a $37.5 million public inquiry is underway into the boondoggle Muskrat Falls dam on Labrador’s Churchill River. Residents of Newfoundland and Labrador can go online to determine how much their hydro bills will rise because of the ill-sighted dam, with an average $1,800 a year per household reported.

Why did the Crown corporation Nalcor continue building the Muskrat Falls dam, and why did the provincial government let it? Where was the oversight and where were the missed opportunities to stop the project before it was too late? Who manufactured the need for Muskrat Falls energy, and why? What other energy options were available if the need arose? Who knew what, and when?

Those are just some of the questions the inquiry is probing — the same questions that no doubt will be asked one day at the inevitable, and much anticipated, Site C dam inquiry in B.C.

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A highly anticipated review of B.C.’s Site C dam has found the project is likely to be over budget and behind schedule and alternative energy sources could be built for an equal or lower unit energy cost.

The report from the B.C. Utilities Commission released Wednesday confirmed many of the concerns that have been raised about the project for years.

The panel found BC Hydro’s mid-load forecast for electricity demand in B.C. “excessively optimistic” and noted there are risks that could result in demand being less than even BC Hydro’s lowest demand scenario.

The panel was “not persuaded that the Site C project will remain on schedule” and found “the project is not within the proposed budget of $8.335 billion.”

Currently, completion costs may be in excess of $10 billion, the report read.

The panel concluded it would be too costly to suspend the dam and potentially re-start construction later and focused its efforts on laying out in detail the consequences of either abandoning or completing the dam. The decision now rests with the B.C. government.

Site C, the third dam on the Peace River, has been controversial for many reasons — but perhaps most of all because the project was exempted from review by the province’s independent utility regulator, the B.C. Utilities Commission.

After coming to power this July, B.C.’s new NDP government immediately sent Site C — which has been under construction for two years — for an expedited review by the commission.

The commission considered 620 written submissions and 304 oral submissions from experts and members of the public in preparing its report.

Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Michelle Mungall said the government plans on making a final decision on the project by the end of the year.

“Now it is our turn, as government, to determine whether Site C is in the best interests of British Columbians, after considering the BCUC’s findings and other issues outside the scope of this review,” Mungall said in a statement.

“This will be an extremely difficult decision. We inherited a project that was advanced by the previous government without proper regulatory oversight, is now more than two years into construction, employs more than 2,000 people, and on which about $2 billion has already been spent.”

The government will meet with First Nations before making a decision, Mungall said.

Energy analyst Robert McCullough, working on behalf of the Peace Valley Landowner Association, said he believes the BCUC report spells the beginning of the end for Site C.

He called the report “courageous” because it basically rejects every part of BC Hydro’s submission, McCullough said.

Site C Dam Over Budget, Behind Schedule and Could be Replaced by Alternatives: BCUC Report https://t.co/u1Mh7hGwVv #SiteC #Hydro #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/9aycFzvRWg

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 1, 2017

Faulty Demand Forecasting Used to Justify Site C

The panel’s report finds BC Hydro has continued a historical pattern of over-forecasting electricity demand and notes the accuracy of BC Hydro’s industrial forecasts has been “considerably below industry benchmarks.”

The failure of an LNG export industry to materialize in B.C. has significantly reduced the likelihood that BC Hydro’s load forecasts will be accurate, the panel found.

The panel also found BC Hydro failed to accurately account for the impact that rising electricity costs have on consumption.

Additionally, given current low market prices and the likelihood of increasing supply, the panel found that BC Hydro’s proposed export price forecast “should not be relied upon.”

An independent analysis provided to the BCUC by the auditing firm Deloitte found between 1964 and 2016, BC Hydro overestimated future electricity demand in B.C. 77 per cent of the time.

The panel’s critique of BC Hydro’s demand forecasting falls in line with the analyses and opinions of numerous experts who have pointed out the crown corporation’s long history of inaccurate forecasting and the potential for costly oversupply.

Alternative Energy “Increasingly Viable,” Panel Finds

The panel critiqued BC Hydro’s modelling of alternatives as unreliable, saying it is “opaque in its assumptions” and uses out-of-date cost estimates for wind and solar.

The panel stated it found a pairing of alternative energy sources and conservation efforts “increasingly viable” at an equal or lower cost than Site C

During two days of technical briefings by experts, the panel heard BC Hydro consistently ignored or over-inflated the costs of wind, solar and geothermal.

In a submission prepared for the BCUC, North American hydroelectric expert Robert McCullough noted the price of renewables has dropped dramatically since 2010, when the Site C project was resuscitated by the B.C. government. During the last seven years the price of solar dropped 74 per cent, while wind dropped 65 per cent.

In August, BC Hydro submitted to the BCUC that it had screened out solar energy on the basis of a cost estimate in 2025 of $97/MWh. In response to a follow-up question from the commission, BC Hydro provided updated cost estimates of $48/MWh.

Marc Lee, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, is calling for a public inquiry into how BC Hydro and the former Liberal government made the case for the project.

“It’s amazing. I would like to see a full inquiry to investigate how BC Hydro executives and the previous government essentially conspired to manufacture the case for Site C,” Lee said.

“As someone who strongly believes in public sector institutions and Crown corporations, to have our electricity utility lying to us, making up numbers and doing all sorts of spurious comparisons between its preferred option and the alternative is shameful,” he said.

ICYMI: Geothermal Would Create 15 Times More Permanent Jobs Than Site C, Panel Told

The panel developed its own model for assessing Site C alternatives and found “it is possible to design an alternative portfolio of commercially feasible generating projects and demand-side management initiatives that could provide similar benefits to ratepayers as Site C.”

Further still, the panel found B.C. could pursue alternative energy and swallow the estimated $1.8 billion cost of terminating Site C and still end up with overall electricity costs comparable to building Site C.

The advantage of alternative energy, the panel states, is its incremental nature.

Combining energy conservation efforts with “smaller scale renewable projects provides flexibility to better match generation with demand.”

Conservation programs and smaller scale projects built by independent power producers “have project completion times in the range of months to a few years, and each project (or energy contract if it is contracted through an IPP) is much lower in price than Site C,” the panel found.

Site C Behind Schedule and Over Budget

Construction of Site C has been plagued with costly setbacks, the most significant of which occurred with the appearance of tension cracks along the left bank of the Peace River.

In October, the new CEO of BC Hydro, Chris O’Riley, wrote a letter to the BCUC, acknowledging the crown corporation would not meet its own timeline for river diversion due to “geotechnical and construction challenges” — a setback that would add an additional $610 million to the project’s budget.

An independent audit conducted by the firm Deliotte on behalf of the BCUC also identified the risk of construction setbacks inflating the Site C budget.

DeSmog Canada first reported on June 30, 2016, that the Site C dam was behind schedule and over budget. Documents obtained via Freedom of Information legislation later revealed a co-ordinated attempt by BC Hydro and Premier Christy Clark’s Office to discredit the story.

Because Site C is in the early stages of construction and due to “the lack of certainty” around persistent geotechnical issues, “the additional $610 million may just be the first in what could be a continuing series of additional risk events occurring, resulting in further cost overruns,” the panel stated.

Infringement of Treaty 8 Rights Still a Question

In addition to cost overruns from construction delays, the panel found unresolved questions regarding the infringement of Treaty 8 First Nations’ rights could further add to Site C costs.

The West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations maintain the Site C dam represents an infringement of their rights guaranteed under Treaty 8. Although the two nations have brought and lost legal challenges in B.C. courts, the question of rights infringement is far from settled, the panel found.

“The courts have addressed administrative law issues including the Crown’s duty to consult but have not addressed whether the Crown, by approving Site C has unjustifiably infringed the Treaty 8 rights. West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations submit that the Crown bears the risk that in the event a lawsuit is commenced, the court will find in favour of Treaty 8 First Nations.”

Under Treaty 8, the government of Canada promised to guarantee the rights of local First Nations to hunt, trap, fish and continue their traditional way of life on their land.

The option remains for Treaty 8 nations to file a civil case for damages caused by Site C, a possibility the panel considered.

The panel also noted the protection of Indigenous rights and reconciliation were present as a “major sub-theme” in its community input sessions.

“The termination of Site C would be interpreted as a positive and meaningful step in the reconciliation process for those First Nations who did not reach an agreement with BC Hydro,” the panel stated in its report.

So what now?

The panel’s alternative portfolio indicated that under the low-load forecast, new power supply wouldn’t be needed until 2039 and could be met by the addition of 444 MW of wind and demand-side management initiatives, such as increased energy efficiency and optional time-of-use rates.

“The cost to ratepayers of Site C and the Illustrative Alternative Portfolio are virtually equivalent,” the panel states.

But, regardless of the comparative costs, there are other issues to consider when comparing the completion and termination cases, the panel notes.

“Both scenarios involve risk that is not easy to quantify. The major risk of Site C in the short term is whether there will be further construction cost overruns. Site C is a major construction project and therefore inherently at risk of larger cost overruns than a smaller project. It has already exceeded its budget, only two years into a nine-year schedule. There are tension cracks and disputes with its contractors both of which remain unresolved,” the report reads.

B.C. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver said he was encouraged by the report’s finding about alternative energy sources.

“I have long argued that the plummeting cost of alternative renewables makes Site C the unequivocal wrong direction for B.C.’s energy future,” Weaver said in a statement. “Supporting the development of smaller renewable projects presents a significant economic opportunity for all corners of British Columbia.”

It will take leadership to cancel Site C, but it is the right decision, according to Weaver.

“It is unconscionable that the BC Liberals demonstrated such reckless disregard for British Columbians and for sound fiscal management by pushing through such a substantial megaproject without proper due diligence and oversight,” he said.

The panel also notes that there are other ways to meet future energy needs that include changes to government policy. These include re-patriating some or all of the Columbia River Treaty entitlement.

“This energy is generated from water stored behind BC Hydro dams in British Columbia and is as firm and flexible as the energy from Site C,” the panel notes.

Ultimately though, the panel doesn’t take a position on which of the termination or completion scenarios has the greatest cost to ratepayers.

Galen Armstrong, Peace Valley campaigner with the Sierra Club BC, said the case for Site C fell apart “at the hands of BC Utilities Commission.”

“The government is faced with two options: continue with an unnecessary boondoggle, leaving taxpayers and ratepayers on the hook for decades to come, or pivot to a lower-cost alternative energy portfolio including wind and geothermal that would provide jobs for British Columbians at a lower cost,” Armstrong said.

Update Notice: This story was updated at 5:30 p.m. to include additional comment.

– With files from Judith Lavoie

Image: Site C dam construction September 2016. Photo: Garth Lenz | DeSmog Canada

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The solar industry was responsible for creating one out of every 50 new jobs in the U.S. last year and the country’s fastest-growing occupation is wind turbine technician — so no matter one’s feelings on climate change, the renewable energy train has left the station, according to a new report. 

“It’s at the point of great return. It’s irreversible. There is no stopping this train,” said Merran Smith, author of Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017 by Clean Energy Canada. “Even Donald Trump can’t kill it.”

More than 260,000 Americans are now employed in the solar industry, more than double 2010 figures. Meantime, the top five wind-energy producing congressional districts are represented by Republicans.

Chart: Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017.

“Donald Trump can’t kill clean energy, nor should he want to. It’s creating jobs and economic opportunities in rural communities in Republican-led states,” Smith said.

Since 2012, the world has brought more power online from renewables than fossil fuels each year — and that trend continued in 2016.

Chart: Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017.

“Global trends show some renewable energy technologies have reached 'grid parity' with fossil fuels—thanks to falling technology costs—meaning no financial support is required to make their cost equal to, or cheaper than, their fossil fuel competitors,” reads the report.

The European Union led the pack, with 86 per cent of its new electricity capacity coming from renewable sources in 2016.

Chart: Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017.

In 2016, China added 30 GW of new solar capacity — or roughly enough solar panels to cover three soccer fields every hour, according to the report.

By 2015, renewable electricity employment is estimated to have grown to 6.7 million direct and indirect jobs globally, with solar PV the leading technology, employing nearly 2.8 million people. It is estimated that in 2015 Canada was home to 10,500 jobs in wind and 8,100 in solar PV.

Chart: Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017.

The cost of renewables is expected to continue to come down, leading to further job creation. Between 2015 and 2025, the International Renewable Energy Agency projects generation costs for onshore wind to fall another 26 per cent, while offshore wind generation costs fall 35 per cent and utility-scale solar PV costs drop 57 per cent.

Chart: Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017.

While renewable electricity capacity held steady, total clean energy investment fell 26 per cent to $348 billion as the clean energy building boom eased off in China and Japan.

“Both countries are now focused on ‘digesting’ the vast amounts of new renewable energy capacity added in recent years,” the report said.

Meantime in Canada, investment in renewables is down for the second year in a row, dropping Canada to 11th place globally.

Chart: Tracking the Energy Revolution 2017.

“But context matters,” the report reads. “Relative to the top five countries leading the world in renewable energy investment and deployment, Canada already has a remarkably clean grid — deriving more than 80 per cent of its power from emissions-free sources and nearly two-thirds from renewable energy. That fact, coupled with relatively stable demand for electricity, limits the need or opportunity for new investment and deployment.”

For Canada, the opportunity lies in getting Alberta and Saskatchewan off coal, as well as exporting Canadian technology around the world.

“One of the biggest opportunities for Canada is this growing global demand in places like India and China for clean energy technologies and services,” Smith said.

For instance, India has a goal to add 175 gigawatts of renewable electricity in the next five years — more than the entire Canadian electrical system.

“They can’t do it alone,” Smith said. “That’s the opportunity for Canada. It’s taking our knowledge and expertise and services and selling them to the world.”

With 11 Canadian clean tech companies recently making the Global Cleantech 100, Canada is already punching above its weight.

Giving them a boost, last week’s federal budget allocated $15 million over four years to help market clean energy technology to the world.

“In the past there’s been a lot of focus on marketing our oil and gas internationally. Now there’s real money to help these companies export their products to the world,” Smith said.

“As the U.S. government retreats from international climate diplomacy, clean energy innovation and free trade, it leaves a gap that Canada is well-positioned to fill. And it’s clear that if we don’t step up, somebody else will.”

Image: Solar power array at the Gerlach School in Nevada. Photo: Black Rock Solar via Flickr

6 Charts That Show Trump Isn’t Stopping the #RenewableEnergy Revolution Any Time Soon https://t.co/ggdcaCzf9k #cleanenergy #solar #climate

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) March 30, 2017

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Across Canada’s north, diesel has long been the primary mode of providing year-round electricity to remote communities — but with the advent of small-scale renewables, that’s about to change.

Northern communities were already making strides toward a renewable energy future, but with $400 million committed in this year’s federal budget to establish an 11-year Arctic Energy Fund, energy security in the north has moved firmly into the spotlight.

“This level of support shows positive commitment from the Canadian government on ending fossil fuel dependency in Indigenous communities and transitioning these communities to clean energy systems,” said Dave Lovekin, a senior advisor at the Pembina Institute.

Burning diesel not only pollutes the atmosphere, but getting it into remote communities is often inefficient in and of itself: it’s delivered by truck, barge or, sometimes when the weather doesn’t cooperate, by plane.

There are more than 170 remote indigenous communities in Canada still relying almost completely upon diesel for their electricity needs.

But, for some, at least, that’s beginning to change. Take the community of Old Crow (Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation), above the Arctic circle in the Yukon.

Despite its northern latitude, and near total darkness between December and February, a 2014 Government of Yukon pilot study demonstrated that solar represents a major untapped renewable resource for the community.

Many homes in Old Crow, north of the Arctic Circle, still rely on diesel, but that's changing. Photo: Matt Jacques.

Now Old Crow has a number of small-scale solar panel installations, including an 11.8 kilowatt array at the Arctic Research Centre — but its sights are set higher. Plans for a 330 kilowatt solar plant are well underway. A 2016 feasibility study estimated that this large-scale installation could offset 17 per cent of the community's total diesel use, or up to 98,000 litres of fuel each year.

“Anything that affects our community, we want to have control over. That’s our goal with this project is to have ownership over the facility,” said William Josie, director of Natural Resources for the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation. “We burn a lot of fuel up here per capita and we’re trying to reduce that.”

Josie said his community is excited to build further solar capacity.

“This has been in the works for a long time, and it’s just the right thing to do,” he said. “It’s the first solar project of this size in the Yukon with community ownership.”

The Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation has a self-governing final agreement in place with the Government of Canada, the Government of the Yukon and the Council of Yukon First Nations. So too does the Kluane (Burwash Landing/Destruction Bay) First Nation in the southwestern Yukon, which is taking another approach to delivering a similar level of renewable energy capacity.

A major $2.4 million wind power generation project is set to be installed in 2018. Three refurbished 95 kilowatt turbines will deliver just under 300 kilowatts of total power and are estimated to offset 21 per cent of the community’s total diesel use.

“One of the big things for the community is to be self-reliant and self-sufficient. Diesel is neither of those two,” explains Colin Asseltine, general manager of the Kluane Community Development Corporation. “We’re looking at what we can possibly do to reduce our carbon footprint and move off-grid.”

The wind project will expand on the earlier successes in the community. Since 1998, Burwash Landing has used biomass for district heating, and began selling solar power back into the grid not long after installing a 48 kilowatt array in 2003. Along the way, they have been collecting the data required to inform the next steps and increase the impact of the community’s investment in renewable energy.

Meet the First Nation Above the Arctic Circle That Just Went #Solar #yukon #arctic #cleanenergy #cdnpoli https://t.co/B9Um6R7yJq

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) March 28, 2017

A geothermal test well provides promise for increased food security.

“Connecting that to our greenhouse projects will really help with the possibility of growing year-round, and having a positive effect on food sustainability at the same time. Both renewable energy and food security go hand in hand, so we’re working on those together,” Asseltine said.

While these two communities have shown that renewable energy solutions are indeed feasible for remote northern environments, hurdles remain.

“Our biggest challenge right now is just to secure capital costs” Josie said. “We’re looking for $2 million to $2.5 million, depending on the final engineering and design.”

Lovekin, from the Pembina Institute, underscores this point, explaining that “the challenges on the technology side are nowhere near the challenges on the financial and community capacity side.”

Up until now, federal and provincial or territorial funds have focused on financing initial development costs.

“The first focus on funding capital expenditure is good, but governments simply putting in money to get systems built has been shown to not be a sustainable strategy to support these communities to fully develop their projects,” Lovekin said. “The more challenging part is the ongoing operations and maintenance and ability for communities to maintain the systems. Systems will break, nobody's there to fix them, and there's little funding for that.”

And once systems are operational, their long-term economic viability largely rests on the value of the Power Purchasing Agreement (PPA) that is offered by the local utility operators.

“In order for that whole model to be successful, you need a better and more fair PPA price than what has typically been offered in the north. Typically the PPA will simply offer the avoided cost of diesel fuel, so whatever it costs to get a litre of diesel up to the community via winter road or barge,” Lovekin adds.

Renewable energy systems typically have lower operating and management costs, and Pembina and others are working to ensure PPA prices reflect true cost savings.

“The federal carbon tax coming into play will also make diesel systems even more costly, so there’s opportunity to look at a PPA price for renewable systems that will not pay the carbon tax, as well as other externalized costs such as diesel fuel spills, financial bailouts when winter roads deteriorate and fuel needs to be flown up. So addressing all of that in what gets offered via a fair and equitable PPA would be ideal,” Lovekin said.

On the community capacity side of the equation, initiatives such as the 20/20 Catalysts Program and the Indigenous Clean Energy Network are providing essential training, and mentorship for indigenous communities making the transition to renewable energy.

Nonetheless, Lovekin feels there is a critical need for “more training, skill development and job establishment to support the community getting involved in their own transition. There need to be barriers removed to have more capacity built and leadership come from within the community.”

That’s where the new federal funding could be a game-changer.

“The real test will be in the types of policies and programs that are developed and how they are designed to support energy autonomy and create economic development within and for Indigenous communities,” Lovekin said.  

Image: Solar panels in Old Crow, Yukon. Photo: Matt Jacques

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On wind-swept ridgelines, surrounded by pine-beetle ravaged forests, the massive turbines at B.C.’s largest wind power project have started turning.

The Meikle Wind project, built by Pattern Development, will increase wind power capacity in the province by more than one third — to almost 674 megawatts — and will be able to generate energy for up to 54,000 homes, according to Mike Garland, Pattern CEO.

The wind farm, 33 kilometres north of Tumbler Ridge, has a 25-year power purchase agreement with BC Hydro and benefits to the province include an expected $70-million in payments for property taxes, Crown lease payments, wind participation rent and community benefits over 25 years.

The wind farm uses the latest technology, with blade tips reaching as high as 170 metres, and the ability to individually control each turbine to capture maximum energy from the wind.

“It’s another step forward in the evolution of wind technology,” said Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association.

“Wind farms are now truly power plants.”

The two turbine models, with varying heights, rotor and generator sizes, catch the maximum possible energy by accounting for varying wind speeds, wind shear, turbulence and inflow angles, said Pattern spokesman Matt Dallas in an emailed response to questions.

But, there were challenges during construction because of mountainous terrain and bad weather.

“This project was unique for its construction, design and weather challenges, as well as for our discovery of rare dinosaur tracks during construction, which we donated to the Tumbler Ridge Museum,” Garland said.

The wind farm has the support of Treaty 8 First Nations and the communities of Tumbler Ridge and Chetwynd and, according to a Pattern Development news release, used more than 500,000 person hours of labour during construction with more than 30 per cent of contracts going to regional companies and First Nations affiliated contractors.

BC’s Biggest Wind Farm Just Came Online — But Future of Wind in the Province is Bleak https://t.co/c689Xj2BYx #bcpoli #cdnpoli @LavoieJudith

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) March 7, 2017

More Wind Farms Unlikely in Near Future

However, despite wind power’s state-of-the-art technology and increasing affordability, B.C. is unlikely to see more such projects in the near future because construction of the Site C dam means BC Hydro is not looking for additional power.

“BC Hydro has publicly stated that there would be no need to procure any additional power until at least 2030,” Hornung said.

The Canadian Wind Energy Association pulled out of B.C. last year when development opportunities dried up and decided to focus attention instead on provinces such as Alberta and Saskatchewan, where coal is being replaced by natural gas and wind.

Harry Swain, the man who chaired the federal-provincial review of Site C, has said there is no need for the dam.

“If there was a need, we could meet it with a variety of other renewable and smaller scale sources,” Swain said.

Opportunities for wind power in B.C. could change if there was considerable growth in the economy or if the government aggressively promoted electrification to meet climate change commitments and explored the possibility of exporting power to other jurisdictions, Hornung said.

“Then the wind industry would be well-positioned to succeed because wind energy is as inexpensive . . . as any other source of electricity generation — with the possible exception of natural gas and, with carbon pricing coming in, that will change fairly soon,” he said.

It is likely that by 2040, wind energy will be 30 to 50 per cent cheaper than it is today, Hornung said.

“So, if and when B.C. needs new generation, wind energy will have to be considered very seriously.”

‘Tough Time’ For Renewable Energy Projects

Paul Kariya, Clean Energy B.C. executive director, is happy to see the Meikle project up and running, but doubts whether other projects will follow in the near future.

“It’s a tough time from the development point of view,” he said.

Electricity demand is down and B.C. is in a surplus position, which is likely to continue when Site C comes on line in 10 years, Kariya said.

One reason for dropping demand is less power is required by a shrinking pulp and paper industry, which was previously one of the largest users of electricity in the province, Kariya said.

An aggressive climate action plan should include proposals to create demand for electricity, Kariya said.

“We should be doing everything we can to electrify and there should be longer term work on an export strategy for our clean energy. We don’t have a strategy in B.C.,” he said.

“The previous Premier (Gordon Campbell) was keen to champion it, but, since then, there has been no interest in it.”

The long-term view should also include the U.S. where subsidies for clean energy under the Obama administration are likely to disappear, which could create export opportunities for Canada, he said.

One of the strengths of clean energy projects is they usually have the support of First Nations — a massive sticking point in fossil fuel-based projects.

“We are a sector that has gone out of its way to have excellent relations with First Nations,” Kariya said.

Projects usually have a light environmental footprint, they have built-in legacies and enable sustainable economic development in terms of revenue sharing, royalty sharing and equity stakes, he said.

“Good wind projects could spark some tremendous First Nations development,” he said.

B.C. currently has five wind projects in operation and there are many more areas of the province, from the northeast to the Okanagan, where more could be successful, Kariya said.

About six per cent of Canada’s electricity comes from wind and, with the addition of the Meikle project, it is estimated almost three per cent of B.C.’s electricity will come from wind power.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Originally published on The Climate Examiner.

The fingerpointing continues on the Ontario government’s decision to cancel $3.8 billion in planned wind and solar projects, as part of its struggle to keep a lid on soaring electricity prices that are being attributed to multiple factors.

The cancelled schemes could have offered up to 1000 megawatts of power under optimal weather conditions, sufficient to service the instantaneous demand of roughly a million homes.

Previously signed projects will still go ahead, including 16 wind, solar and run-of-river hydroelectric endeavours that could offer up to 455 megawatts.

Last month, the government announced an eight-per cent subsidy for residential and small-business electricity bills amid growing voter anger over price increases that have given the province one of the highest electricity costs in North America.

When making this latest announcement, energy minister Glen Thibeault said that Ontario had a surplus of supply with no “urgent need” for expanding capacity.

The move has shocked environmental groups who until now have cheered on the provincial Liberal’s efforts to decarbonize, with greenhouse gas emissions declining by 80 per cent since 2005 even as energy prices have nearly doubled over that same period.

While many Ontarians blame the price hikes on the province’s renewable energy build-out, some of these green NGOs are instead pointing to the cost of refurbishing nuclear plants, while others are pointing to the impact of transmission upgrades, the HST, privatization of Ontario Hydro, and debt retirement.

Paul Hébert, a spokesperson for the Canadian Nuclear Association, told the Climate Examiner: “Even after refurbishment, the average price of electricity per kilowatt-hour from nuclear is just 8 cents, while the average unit cost across all sources is 14 cents. Solar is 50 cents, so nuclear is actually pulling the average down.”

Jeffrey English, an energy systems expert with PICS’ 2060 Project, which is based within the Institute of Integrated Energy Systems at the University of Victoria, explains some of the issues at play: “Since 2006, electrical demand has actually decreased by eight per cent in Ontario,” he explains in a brief analysis of the cost increases. This unexpected drop-off in demand was largely a product of the global economic crisis.

Over the same period, the government had expected a growth in demand, and also needed to maintain grid reliability as it retired coal-fired plants. So additional electricity was procured via fixed-term contracts with suppliers for nuclear, renewable, and gas-fired energy.

“As a result, these policies have generated a large surplus of supply in the province leading to very low wholesale market prices,” he says. But the fixed-term contracts offered higher prices for a predicted demand scenario that never arose.

In other words, it is a situation of oversupply combined with contractual obligations and the need to maintain grid reliability that is cause of the price increases.

Image: Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne surveys an electric vehicle at Queen's Park. Photo: Ontario Liberal Caucus via Flickr

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It sounds like a renewable energy utopia of the distant future.

Twelve million houses with roofs covered in solar panels. Wind turbines whipping the equivalent energy of 170 Site C dams onto the grid. A popular type of hydro called pumped storage, which often leaves a pinky toe of an environmental footprint compared to the imprint of large dams and their reservoirs.

But this is no futuristic climate-friendly Shangri-La. It’s all part of the U.S. government’s national Hydropower Vision for the next 15 to 35 years, a report unveiled in late July at the world’s largest annual hydro event in Minneapolis.

Developed by the U.S. Department of Energy, the report outlines a very different energy path than the “one dam fits all” approach of the B.C. government, whose single-minded focus on building the $8.8 billion Site C dam on the Peace River blew the Canadian Wind Energy Association right out of the province earlier this year.

In the U.S. vision, construction of new large dams is supplanted by more environmentally-friendly energy development, focusing on a fast-growing type of hydro called pumped storage and the deep integration of hydro with wind and solar power.

“The report tries to articulate a future for hydro that is really built on new types of hydro power facilities that intrinsically find themselves to be smaller in size,” Jose Zayas, the Director of Wind and Water Power Technologies for the U.S. Energy Department, said in an interview with DeSmog.

Zayas said “it would be difficult to imagine” that large hydro facilities like the Hoover Dam and Grand Coulee Dam will be replicated in the U.S. given “environmental considerations” and as long as there are renewable energy alternatives.

Instead, he said existing large U.S. dams will be updated with modern equipment to increase their energy output, and they will dovetail with more variable wind and solar power to ensure a steady electricity supply.

Joining wind and solar is a third musketeer in the U.S. renewable energy transition: pumped storage, a smaller footprint form of hydro that was examined by BC Hydro in 2010 and found to be viable in British Columbia.

A 21st Century Electrical Grid

In a keynote address to the hydro convention, which drew almost 3,000 delegates from around the world, Zayas said the U.S. hydro industry wants to partner with a “growing set of technologies such as solar and wind, and it wants to partner quickly.”

“Think about hydro and pumped storage as an enabler for the transmission and modernization of our 21st century electrical infrastructure.”

In keeping with that objective, Zayas and the many stakeholders who worked on the vision report, including industry and the environmental group American Rivers, dubbed it “A New Chapter for America’s First Renewable Electricity Source.”

The U.S. vision stands in sharp contrast to what Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association, called a lack of opportunity to develop new wind projects in B.C., despite a “tremendous untapped potential” for wind development in the province. Hornung said the association was withdrawing from B.C. this year to focus on Alberta and Saskatchewan, “markets which provide the greatest opportunities in the short term to see more wind energy deployed in the country.”

As the Canadian Wind Energy Association exits B.C., wind power in the U.S. will amplify by 150 percent over the next few decades, according to Zayas. Wind facilities in the U.S. already generate 75,000 megawatts of energy a year, while Site C’s projected output is a fraction of that at 1,100 megawatts.

“When you look at the growth curves of wind and solar they’re quite exponential, Zayas said in an interview. “What you find into the future is quite a bit of renewables.”

Complementing the projected increase in wind and solar energy, the U.S. Department of Energy points to the potential expansion of pumped storage, which is capable of generating 36,000 megawatts of new power in the U.S., or the equivalent of building 33 Site C dams.

Rendering of the Yecheon Pumped Storage Hydropower Facility. Image: U.S. Department of Energy

Pumped Storage A Potential for B.C.

A 2010 study commissioned by BC Hydro concluded that pumped storage is a viable renewable energy option in the province, raising questions about why the B.C. government has not embraced pumped storage to produce more environmentally-friendly energy than Site C, which will put more than 100 kilometres of the ecologically-unique Peace River Valley and its tributary valleys under water.

The Royal Society of Canada said the environmental impact of Site C would be more severe than any other industrial project ever examined under Canada’s current environmental assessment act, including the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project.

Former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen told DeSmog that BC Hydro has “too much of a vested interest” in large hydro projects.  The only serious way to examine alternatives to Site C, including pumped storage, would be to establish an independent review body, said Eliesen. “You would have to create an independent commission of inquiry to look into this.”

DeSmog twice asked the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines why pumped storage was not chosen as a lower-impact hydro option than Site C, but received no reply. BC Hydro also did not respond to a phone call asking for comment.

Previously, BC Hydro has said Site C is the cheapest option for generating new electricity in the province.

U.S. Hydropower Vision Exposes B.C.’s Short-Sighted Thinking on #SiteC Dam https://t.co/Ue2KBXtePJ @sarahcox_bc #bcpoli #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 10, 2016

Pumped Storage Facility in the Works for Ontario

In pumped storage, water is moved back and forth between two smaller reservoirs in a system that can be closed, effectively recycling the water. Reservoirs can be natural water bodies, blasted in rock formations, or they can be repurposed former mine and quarry sites.

“Water is pumped to the upper reservoir at night when electricity prices are low and released down to the lower reservoir during the day to generate power when needed,” explains Northland Power, the developer of a proposed pumped storage facility in Ontario that will make use of an abandoned mine pit filled with water.  

“It’s the project that keeps on giving,” John Wright, Northland’s lead developer for the project, told DeSmog. “It was an open pit iron mine…Then it was used for crushing gravel and at the next phase of its life it’s going to become a long-term clean energy asset. It’s a pretty good use of a natural resource, the ultimate use in my point of view.”

Construction of the Marmora pumped storage facility will cost Northland Power $900 million and the facility will produce 400 megawatts of power, according to Wright, or about 36 percent of the energy that would be generated by Site C. Northland is seeking a power purchase agreement with the Ontario government and will spend four to five years developing the facility once permits are received.

Wright said pumped storage, developed more than a century ago in Italy and Switzerland, is undergoing a worldwide “renaissance” as governments and industry realize it is a perfect complement to more variable wind and solar energy systems.

Significant Alternatives to Site C Available in B.C.

After former Premier Gordon Campbell announced in April 2010 that the provincial government would seek regulatory approval to build the Site C dam, BC Hydro commissioned a report to evaluate the potential for pumped storage in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island.

Despite the Vancouver-based Knight Piésold consulting firm being given just six weeks to analyze pumped storage potential in southwestern B.C., it came to some thought-provoking conclusions. 

“Are there potentially viable greenfield pumped storage hydroelectric sites in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island region of southwest British Columbia that are economically viable?” Knight Piésold said in its 44-page report. “The answer to this question is YES, there are numerous potential pumped storage sites that meet the basic criteria established for this study.”

After eliminating pumped storage options in terrestrial parks and salmon-bearing rivers, Knight Piésold, an employee-owned firm with offices in 15 countries, concluded that there are 194 potential pumped storage sites in southwestern B.C.

Each of the 194 sites is capable of producing 500 to 1,000 megawatts of electricity.

Of those sites, Knight Piésold identified 45 as the cheapest to develop.

“Freshwater pumped storage is a proven technology with projects operating worldwide,” said the report, which contains a chart of more than 60 pumped storage projects across the globe, each generating more than 1,000 megawatts of energy.

Pumped storage facilities are common in Europe and Asia as well as in the U.S., where 22,000 megawatts of energy are already generated by this method.

B.C. Pumped Storage Would Steer Clear of Salmon Rivers

Pumped storage facilities around the world range from tiny installations that generate less than 100 megawatts of energy to large facilities in China and the United States that create the equivalent power of nearly two or three Site C dams. A 1,700-megawatt pumped storage facility in Wales, the Dinorwig Power Station, was constructed on the former site of slate quarries that closed in the 1960s.

A 2012 report for BC Hydro found that B.C.’s north coast also has a “high potential” for pumped storage hydro at sites that exclude terrestrial parks and salmon-bearing rivers.

In that report, Knight Piésold identified 33 potential freshwater pumped storage sites on the North Coast, each capable of producing 500 or 1,000 megawatts of electricity.

However, the firm cautioned that the North Coast potential for pumped storage was “slightly less than in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, primarily due to the relatively undisturbed nature of the landscape and the lack of many existing hydropower and other man-made reservoirs suitable for use as part of a pumped storage facility.”

Eliesen said times have changed and B.C. needs to re-examine its focus on producing most new electricity from large dams, taking into account factors such as the environment, agriculture, recreation, and the ability to produce electricity more locally.

“Now, because of the trade-offs that are involved, this is a serious matter. There’s no question that a full evaluation of alternative forms of generating energy without seriously impacting the environment…and on a local basis…has to be looked at.”  

On the same day the U.S. Department of Energy released its vision report, it also announced a US$10 million contribution to help build “next-generation” pumped storage facilities and for power generation projects at dams that currently have other uses, such as flood control. Unlike in Canada, where hydro is publicly owned, the U.S. has a mix of public and private hydro.

Zayas said the U.S. Department of Energy is striving for an integrated system of wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, and hydro. “We invest in all of those.”

Image: Site C Construction along the Peace River. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada

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You probably wouldn't guess it, but Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia are unsung heroes in Canadian wind energy — producing more than 10 per cent of their electricity needs from wind, more than any other provinces.

“Some electricity utility companies in Canada will tell you all you’ll ever get from wind is 10 per cent of your electrical needs,” Carl Brothers, an engineer and wind energy consultant, said. "In PEI, we are closing in on 30 per cent."

By comparison, Ontario, Canada’s biggest wind power producer, manages to meet about four per cent of its domestic demand through wind energy.

The shift to renewable energy in Nova Scotia and PEI in the last decade has been nothing short of remarkable.  At the turn of the 21st century, both provinces were dependent on coal and oil-fired power plants for nearly all of their electricity. Neither province possesses the massive waterpower resources Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia rely on to produce renewable electricity.

Yet today Canada’s two smallest provinces have approximately 25 per cent renewables in their respective electricity mixes and wind power is a leading component. Germany, a global leader in clean energy, generates more than one third of its electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar and biomass.

“We took a look around at the domestic resources available to us and renewable energy, predominantly wind, just made sense,” Catherine Abreu, an energy campaigner for the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax, told DeSmog Canada.

“We have a lot of insight to share on what kind of investments and changes need to be made to existing infrastructure that will be true [for jurisdictions] across Canada as we move towards a clean energy economy,” Abreu said.

If Canada is to have any hope of doing its part to tackle climate change, the country needs to find a way to incorporate substantially more renewable energy into its energy mix. A recent study indicates Canada could produce close to 60 per cent of its primary energy (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, industry) from wind alone by 2050.

Non-water based renewables like wind and solar currently make up only three per cent of the country’s electrical generation.

Lessons learned in the Maritimes’ rapid transition to wind energy could hold the keys to Canada finally plugging into this clean, sustainable and largely untapped resource.  

PEI Wind Power: "Islanders Own It"

Feeling the pinch from the rapid rise in fossil fuel prices in the early 2000s, PEI and Nova Scotia set ambitious provincial renewable energy targets. In 2008, the PEI government announced 500 megawatts worth of wind energy facilities to be installed in the province, which is equivalent to one third of Alberta’s current wind power capacity. Alberta is the third biggest producer of wind energy in Canada.

“One thing PEI doesn’t have in the ground are fossil fuels, but we have a wonderful wind resource,” Brothers told DeSmog Canada.

Brothers has been in the PEI renewable energy business for over three decades and is also the CEO of Frontier Power Systems in Charlottetown.

Even though PEI has yet to hit its 500 megawatt wind target, nearly 100 per cent of all electricity produced on PEI comes from wind farms, a feat unmatched anywhere in Canada. The rest of PEI’s electrical needs are met mostly by electricity imports from New Brunswick.

A key feature of early wind development in PEI was public ownership.

“Prince Edward Islanders have always had a strong environmental ethic,” Brothers said. “And there is a definite sense of public ownership and pride in our wind farms. Islanders own it.”

PEI Energy Corporation, a provincial Crown corporation, owned and operated early wind facilities and the PEI government guaranteed the loans for the startup projects. To this day, PEI Energy generates the wind power used domestically and private sector companies sell wind energy out of province.

This sense of public ownership may also explain why PEI has not seen the same public pushback against wind turbines that has been experienced by private companies in Ontario.

The benefits of wind energy go beyond cleaning up the province’s electricity. PEI’s North Cape Wind Farm, one of Canada’s first commercial wind farms, is now the site of the Wind Energy Institute of Canada, a leading national wind energy innovation and research institution.

The province’s Hermanville/Clearspring Wind Development Project provides approximately $350,000 annually to nearby landowners and the community at large through royalties and a newly established community development fund, according to the PEI government.

“At the end of the day we need to find a way to sustainability. Our grandchildren will think less of us if we don’t take the initiative,” Brothers told DeSmog.

Source: Canadian Wind Energy Association

Nova Scotia Leads All Provinces in Cutting GHG Emissions

Nova Scotia has quietly crept to the head of the pack as a provincial climate leader. The province implemented North America’s first “hard caps” on emissions in the electricity sector, has a 40 per cent renewables 2020 target and is in position to lead all provinces and territories in future GHG reductions.

Nova Scotia also has installed more wind power capacity than B.C., a province 20 times its size. The province’s Community Feed-In-Tariff, or COMFIT, program deserves much of the credit for gaining public acceptance of wind power.

“COMFIT projects in the end did not produce a lot of energy, but it did help in winning over the public,” Brendan Haley, a Broadbent Institute research fellow and former renewable energy campaigner in Nova Scotia, said.

Introduced in 2011, the COMFIT program guaranteed a predetermined fixed rate to be paid on the electricity local producers sold. Only community entities like municipalities, energy co-operatives, First Nations and universities could participate in and reap the benefits of the program. COMFIT incentivized getting into the renewable energy game by minimizing the financial risks for non-private sector players.

The results exceeded even the Nova Scotia government’s expectations.

A provincial government report estimates 125 megawatts of electricity are produced by projects under COMFIT and an additional 100 megawatts are expected to come online in the future. Most projects are wind farms. When COMFIT was established, the provincial government expected only 100 megawatts of electricity from the program.

“If you look at the latest energy policy, it is fairly transparent the current government is doing whatever it takes to push off any rate increase until after the next election,” Haley told DeSmog Canada.

Despite COMFIT’s success, the Nova Scotia government cancelled the program last August. The provincial government justified the move by claiming it was keeping consumer prices on power bills down. Nova Scotia does have some of the highest electrical rates in Canada.

A year earlier, the same Liberal provincial government capped Nova Scotia’s energy efficiency budget under similar same cost-saving pretenses. Haley says the province’s previously strong energy efficiency standards on electricity played a big role in Nova Scotia’s ability to make deep greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cuts.

Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada, 2016

An additional reason for the Nova Scotia’s government cancellation of COMFIT was that the program “had achieved its objectives.” Abreu of the Ecology Action Centre argued at the time that surpassing COMFIT’s original goals “should be cause for celebration, not cancellation.”

Atlantic Canada Could Be Canada’s 100 Per Cent Renewable Testing Grounds

The renewable energy revolution in the Maritimes has somewhat stalled and the reasons are not only political.

“The Maritimes are really quickly coming up against the limits of our existing infrastructure,” Abreu said.

Electrical grids in Canada are designed to distribute electricity from a handful of large powerful sources like coal plants or hydro dams, not dozens of smaller intermittent ones like wind turbines or solar panels.

“We are figuring it out,” Abreu told DeSmog Canada. “New Brunswick is really invested in understanding smart grids and how to implement them, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are experimenting with regional dispatch and utilities are doing the work to understand how to deal with intermittent renewable energy.”

PEI may be a ‘lab,' holding clues to solving Canada’s energy questions. Brothers and Abreu agree the province’s vast wind resource and size make PEI the ideal testing grounds for large-scale deployment of electric vehicles and other measures fundamental in shifting Canada from a fossil fuels economy to a clean energy society.

Brothers is concerned that with low oil and natural gas prices and without a price on carbon pollution, the PEI government has lost its appetite for building more wind farms despite the province’s heavily reliance on fossil fuels for energy and tremendous potential to go big in wind power.

A study in 2015 conducted by Stanford University Engineering Professor Mark Jacobson identifies Atlantic Canada, as well as the Pacific Coast, Great Lakes and the Prairies as areas in the world with “strong” wind resources available for power generation.

Image Credit: The Wind Energy Institute of Canada via Green Energy Futures/Flickr

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Another year, another U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) assessment report that makes the agency's own forecasters look foolish.

In the latest Electric Power Monthly report, which covers all twelve months of 2015, the EIA revealed that renewable energy sources accounted for nearly 13.5-percent of the nation’s utility-scale electrical output. This is up by more than 2-percent over 2014. But get this: less than three months earlier, in the “Short-Term Energy Outlook,” the agency predicted “total renewables used in the electric power sector to decrease by 1.8% in 2015.”

The EIA’s record for long-term forecasts is no better. In fact, it’s consistently worse.

As Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign, recently pointed out, the agency’s “Annual Energy Outlook 2012” forecast that non-hydro renewables would provide about 250,000 thousand megawatt-hours of electricity by 2015. The new EIA tallies put that figure at over 300,000 thousand megawatt-hours, roughly 20-percent higher than predicted. (You could more simply state this as the 300,000 gigawatt hours actually produced in 2015 is 20-percent higher than the 250,000 gigawatt-hours predicted, but for some reason, the EIA likes to use the clunky “thousand megawatt-hours" factor.)

"Just a few years ago EIA had forecast that renewables might provide 15% of the nation's electricity by 2035," said Bossong. "It now appears that goal could be reached within the next two years and quite possibly sooner!"

This isn’t the rare instance of the EIA getting something wrong. Rather, it’s something of an annual tradition. Consider these examples, taken at random (and culled from links I’ve bookmarked over the past few years under the tag, “EIA wrong”):

• “In 2009, the federal government’s Energy Information Administration made a forecast for the next two decades: U.S. wind power would grow modestly, reaching 44 gigawatts of generating capacity in 2030, while solar power would remain scarce, inching up to 12 GW. Just six years later, U.S. wind capacity is already up to 66 GW, and solar has shot up to 21 GW. There's now enough installed wind and solar to power 25 million American homes— more than three times what the EIA expected before President Obama took office.” Michael Grunwald in Politico
• “In 2005, EIA forecast that U.S. solar power capacity would hit about 1.2 GW in 2013. Where are we right now [in 2013]? According to Greentech Media, the U.S. is closing in (if it already hasn’t passed) the 10 GW mark in solar PV capacity right about now, and that’s not even counting solar thermal power generating capacity (according to this article, you can add another 1 GW or so of U.S. solar thermal power capacity). In sum, EIA forecast 1.2 GW of U.S. solar power capacity in 2013; the actual figure is around 11 GW – nearly 10 times higher than EIA forecast!” Former EIA employee Lowell Feld, in 2013.  
• “The report this year [2015] predicts that by 2040, the U. S. will have added only 48 gigawatts of solar generating capacity. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) expects that the industry will add half of that by the end of 2016. “ Samantha Page in ThinkProgress
• In an update on June 2015, the EIA projected that the cheapest solar deployed in 2020 would cost $89 / mwh, after subsidies. That’s 8.9 cents / kwh to most of us. (This assumes that the solar Investment Tax Credit is not extended.)…How has that forecast worked out? Well, in Austin, Greentech Media reports that there are 1.2GW of bids for solar plants at less than $40/mwh, or 4c/kwh. And there are bids on the table for buildouts after the ITC goes away at similar prices. Ramez Naam

So why does this matter? That predictions about something as complex as energy markets are always wrong shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

Yet, as Jeff Deyette, an analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told ThinkProgress about the EIA forecasts, "real policies are being designed around these assumptions."

This becomes particularly troubling when the assumptions consistently favor investment in fossil fuels, and shortchange the potential of renewables.

Steve Yetiv and Lowell Feld break it down further in an important article for the Journal of Energy Security called, "Why Energy Forecasting Goes Wildly Wrong."

Why does any of this matter, and why should any of us care if energy forecasts are off base most of the time? To the extent that policymakers believe erroneous forecasts, they can make wildly incorrect policy choices. For instance, if they believe that oil prices will remain far lower in the future than is the case, their forecasts will undermine efforts to conserve or to switch to alternatives. Why would nations, businesses, entrepreneurs, and individual consumers take such steps if oil prices are predicted to remain low? At a minimum, this will be one factor working against conservation and movement away from fossil fuels.

Crucially, these forecasts are used by governments to guide policymaking. And this goes all the way to the top.

As Lorne Stockman notes, "The White House’s key energy policy document cites the EIA’s oil demand forecast, and its outlook for steady oil demand decades into the future, as the basis for the latest round of lease sales in the Outer Continental Shelf, which includes areas in the Atlantic Ocean offered for the first time in decades together with new areas made available north of the Arctic Circle in the Chukchi Sea."

Two years ago, a group of CleanTechnica readers were so alarmed by the EIA's 2014 Annual Energy Outlook, they wrote a letter to the Secretary of Energy suggesting that the forecasting and reporting methods and models be overhauled.

We also feel that the EIA has made thousands of forecasts in the past which never seem to be publicly visited again, for example in the 2010 AEO it was forecast that we would reach 0.45 GW of solar PV on the grid by 2035, in November 2013 we reached 7.11 GW according to the FERC.

Surely, in making new predictions it would be appropriate for the EIA to address how their models could produce a 25 year forecast which has already been surpassed 16 times over in less than 3 years. What changes have been made to the models to improve this terrible forecasting record? If none, then should the renewable forecasts come with a disclaimer that they are highly unreliable and have a history of massive underestimation of renewable growth, surely burying them deep in the data of the report is not an appropriate strategy.

Solar and wind trade groups are also outspoken about the need to reform the EIA's outlooks.

"All forecasts are going to be inaccurate. What is concerning is when you see consistent systemic bias in your projections from EIA," said Michael Goggin, of the American Wind Energy Association. "There seems to be consistent bias in EIA's projections against renewable energy, and that's a different thing from being inaccurate."

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This is a guest post by David Suzuki. 

Cars, air travel, space exploration, television, nuclear power, high-speed computers, telephones, organ transplants, prosthetic body parts… At various times these were all deemed impossible. I’ve been around long enough to have witnessed many technological feats that were once unimaginable. Even 10 or 20 years ago, I would never have guessed people would carry supercomputers in their pockets — your smart phone is more powerful than all the computers NASA used to put astronauts on the moon in 1969 combined!

Despite a long history of the impossible becoming possible, often very quickly, we hear the “can’t be done” refrain repeated over and over — especially in the only debate over global warming that matters: What can we do about it? Climate change deniers and fossil fuel industry apologists often argue that replacing oil, coal and gas with clean energy is beyond our reach. The claim is both facile and false.

Facile because the issue is complicated. It’s not simply a matter of substituting one for the other. To begin, conservation and efficiency are key. We must find ways to reduce the amount of energy we use — not a huge challenge considering how much people waste, especially in the developed world. False because rapid advances in clean energy and grid technologies continue to get us closer to necessary reductions in our use of polluting fossil fuels.

It’s ironic that anti-environmentalists and renewable energy opponents often accuse those of us seeking solutions of wanting to go back to the past, to living in caves, scrounging for roots and berries. They’re the ones intent on continuing to burn stuff to keep warm — to the detriment of the natural world and all it provides.

People have used wind and solar power for thousands of years. But recent rapid advances in generation, storage and transmission technologies have led to a fast-developing industry that’s outpacing fossil fuels in growth and job creation. Costs are coming down to the point where renewable energy is competitive with the heavily subsidized fossil fuel industry. According to the International Energy Agency, renewable energy for worldwide electricity generation grew to 22 per cent in 2013, a five per cent increase from 2012.

The problem is that much of the world still burns non-renewable resources for electricity and fuels, causing pollution and climate change and, subsequently, more human health problems, extreme weather events, water shortages and environmental devastation. In many cities in China, the air has become almost unbreathable, as seen in the shocking Chinese documentary film Under the Dome. In California, a prolonged drought is affecting food production. Extreme weather events are costing billions of dollars worldwide.

We simply must do more to shift away from fossil fuels and, despite what the naysayers claim, we can. We can even get partway there under our current systems. Market forces often lead to innovation in clean energy development. But in addressing the very serious long-term problems we’ve created, we may have to challenge another “impossibility”: changing our outmoded global economic system. As economist and Earth Institute director Jeffrey Sachs wrote in a recent Guardian article, “At this advanced stage of environmental threats to the planet, and in an era of unprecedented inequality of income and power, it’s no longer good enough to chase GDP. We need to keep our eye on three goals — prosperity, inclusion, and sustainability — not just on the money.”

Relying on market capitalism encourages hyper-consumption, planned obsolescence, wasteful production and endless growth. Cutting pollution and greenhouse gas emissions requires conserving energy as well as developing new energy technologies. Along with reducing our reliance on private automobiles and making buildings and homes more energy-efficient, that also means making goods that last longer and producing fewer disposable or useless items so less energy is consumed in production.

People have changed economic systems many times before, when they no longer suited shifting conditions or when they were found to be inhumane, as with slavery. And people continue to develop tools and technologies that were once thought impossible. Things are only impossible until they’re not. We can’t let those who are stuck in the past, unable to imagine a better future, hold us back from creating a safer, cleaner and more just world.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The steady march of renewable energy, primarily wind and solar, toward mainstream usage continued apace in 2014.

Here are the top 5 clean energy revolution stories in the U.S. this year:

• Solar And Wind Continued To Surge In The U.S.

In November 2014, nearly three-fourths (71.82%) of the 873 megawatts (MW) of new electricity generation capacity installed in the U.S. was powered by wind and solar, according to data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Clean energy installations kept up at a furious pace this year, with renewable sources providing the majority of newly installed electricity generation capacity in nine of the past 11 months.

The Obama Administration has made renewable energy targets a key aspect of the emissions reductions it hopes to achieve with the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, but those targets have been criticized as not nearly ambitious enough. Many states like California, Colorado and Hawaii, have already set their own goals that meet or beat those proposed in the EPA's plan. Local governments in cities like Austin, TX and Burlington, VT are committing to strong clean energy policies, as well.

Perhaps they're inspired by the example set by countries like Scotland, which has shown that it is possible to generate more than enough electricity to meet all household needs via renewable sources.

Renewable energy (including water, wind, solar and geothermal sources) now accounts for more than 15% of total installed generating capacity in the U.S.

• California And Texas Set Renewable Energy Records

The fact that California and Texas both set renewable energy records this year points to a clear trend of renewable energy scaling up nationwide in blue and red states alike. Solar had a huge year in 2013, as well, with California, Arizona and North Carolina taking the top three spots in terms of new solar capacity installed. As divided as the U.S. is along partisan lines these days, one thing we can all agree on is that the time has come for clean energy to supplant antiquated fossil fuel technologies.

• Federal Renewable Energy Loan Program Is Paying Off

Opponents of clean energy tried to use the failure of solar panel maker Solyndra in 2011 as a political cudgel to bash all government support of the renewables sector, specifically targeting the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Program Office, which has made some $21.71 billion in loans to help spur the growth of technologies like utility-scale solar energy and electric vehicles.

So it was kind of a big deal when the Energy Department reported that the loan program has reached solvency just two years later. The program’s $780 million in losses has been more than made up for by the $810 million in interest already collected. Though this doesn't mean the program itself will generate any monetary profits, the fact that electric car manufacturer Tesla was able to repay its $465 million loan nine years early shows that the program is having the intended effect of helping to build a robust clean energy economy.

• Utilities Are Trying To Steal The Rooftop Solar Business Model, And The Walton Family Is Trying To Kill It

On the face of it, the news that utility companies are now trying to steal the rooftop solar business model might sound like bad news—and the same could probably be said of the fact that the Walton family, owners of Walmart, are using their family foundation to try and destroy the rooftop solar business model altogether.

But the fact that both the utility industry and the billionaire Waltons now see distributed rooftop solar as such a threat that they are either trying to co-opt the business model or defeat it altogether shows that they see it as a viable alternative to dirty energy. And well they should.

Solar, for instance, accounted for 36% of all new electricity generation capacity installed in the U.S. through the first three quarters of 2014, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. The average price of a solar PV panel has dropped by 63% over the past three years, so it's no wonder that some 600,000 households and businesses have gone solar. Residential solar led industry growth through Q3 2014, with installations up 58% over last year.

If this kind of growth can be sustained, it represents a huge threat to the business models the utility companies and the Walton family have used to build their highly profitable empires. Renewable energy will revolutionize the way we power our society, which is what utilities are finally, begrudgingly, coming to accept, even if it isn't anything more than a belated attempt to cash-in.

Meanwhile, distributed energy systems will democratize who profits from energy generation, which is what the corporatist Walton family is hoping to stop.

In other words, 2014 presented plenty of evidence that the clean energy revolution is at hand.

• Solar Could Be The World’s Biggest Source Of Energy By 2050

The International Energy Agency released two “Technology Roadmap” reports this year showing that solar photovoltaic (PV) systems could supply 16% of the world's electricity needs by 2050, while concentrated solar power (CSP) plants could provide another 11%. In other words, solar could be the world’s single largest source of energy within the next few decades—but only if politicians and other policymakers provide “clear, credible and consistent signals” of support for renewables, according to the IEA.

But the future is not only bright for solar. Another report, by the Global Wind Energy Council and Greenpeace International, showed that wind power could provide 25-30% of global energy needs by 2050 if fossil fuel companies and other vested interests don’t get in the way.

China’s commitment to produce 20% of its energy from zero-emission sources by 2030 as part of the historic climate deal it struck with the U.S. could have a big impact on the global market for renewable technologies.

A worldwide shift to renewables would not only make sense as a means of lowering emissions and combating climate change, but, according to two reports published by the Climate Policy Initiative, it would also make economic sense, saving the global economy as much as $1.8 trillion compared to sticking with fossil fuels.

As the inventor Thomas Edison said in a 1931 conversation with his friends Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone: “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”

Here's to hoping 2015 moves us closer, rather than farther, from Edison's dream.

Image Credit: wang song / Shutterstock.com

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.