Canada’s grid ambitions are accelerating, but electrification demand still lags: UVic modeller

Canada has made rapid political progress toward expanding its electricity system, but the country is still moving too slowly to electrify transportation, buildings and industry, says University of Victoria energy modeller Madeleine McPherson.

In an interview with Energi Media, McPherson said federal and provincial governments have shifted dramatically from years of fragmented electricity planning toward a broader national conversation about grid expansion and interprovincial transmission.

She pointed to the federal goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply by 2050, recent agreements among governments on energy corridors and growing support from provincial energy ministers for stronger east-west electricity connections.

But McPherson said expanding supply is only part of the challenge. Canada also needs much faster adoption of electric technologies.

Transportation illustrates the gap. McPherson cited International Energy Agency figures showing zero-emission vehicles accounted for about 55 per cent of new vehicle sales in China in 2025 and 28 per cent in Europe, compared with only 11 per cent in Canada.

Canada should have an advantage because much of its electricity is relatively clean and low-cost, she said. Instead, the country remains less electrified than several major competitors.

“We are not electrifying as fast as other jurisdictions. And there’s a really big irony here, right? We have some of the cleanest and most affordable power in the world. If anything, we should be electrifying faster than anywhere else in the world. But we’re not. And I think this is a problem.”

McPherson said modelling by her University of Victoria team shows that a more electrified economy, combined with a lower-cost and more reliable power system, can support stronger GDP growth, employment and trade competitiveness.

“What we see is huge advantages in terms of growth and competitiveness when we have a more electrified economy and also a power system that has been planned to reduce electric power system costs and improve reliability through measures like greater grid integration.”

Her team’s latest report for Electricity Canada examines how greater interprovincial transmission could improve reliability during extreme weather. Researchers modelled droughts, heat waves, floods, ice storms, windstorms and wildfires while comparing scenarios with existing interties against scenarios that allowed additional transmission to be built where it was economically optimal.

McPherson said Canada also needs far more modelling capacity and better coordination between provincial electricity plans. She helped establish the Energy Modeling Hub after working at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where she was frustrated to see American researchers conducting major modelling work on Canada’s grid because comparable domestic capacity was limited.

The hub now develops open-source models and datasets intended to improve transparency for policymakers and researchers.

McPherson said the next step is not for Ottawa to take over provincial electricity planning. Provinces and their utilities understand their own systems best. What is missing, she said, is an institution or process capable of stitching provincial plans together and identifying the most valuable cross-border projects.

She pointed to Australia as a useful example. After a devastating 2016 blackout, Australia moved toward stronger national coordination while preserving state-level planning.

Canada, she said, now has something it lacked for years: political alignment around the need to build and connect the electricity system. The challenge is turning that consensus into infrastructure — and into policies that cause households and businesses to use much more electricity.