Electrifying Industry to Boost Competitiveness of BC Businesses

British Columbia investing $27 million into 17 industrial projects

The funding, announced Sept. 21 through the Clean Industry Fund, includes more than $23 million for four projects demonstrating or deploying technologies and more than $3 million for 13 feasibility studies. The projects range from carbon capture and methane detection to industrial heat pumps, electrification, biomass, and energy-efficiency improvements.

“British Columbia is proving that cutting emissions and growing our economy go hand in hand,” said Energy and Climate Solutions Minister Adrian Dix in a press release. “These projects will help businesses adopt innovative technologies, lower their emissions and compete in a world that is increasingly demanding low-carbon products.”

The largest awards are $12 million to Tourmaline Oil for an acid-gas and CO2 capture project near Fort St. John and $11 million to Heidelberg Materials for its Delta slag project. Other projects include electrifying compressor stations in northeastern B.C., replacing diesel equipment at industrial facilities and studying the use of industrial heat pumps.

Lord Adair Turner, chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, argues that electrification will extend deep into industry because electric technologies are inherently more efficient than combustion. For example, medium-temperature industrial heat can already be economically electrified in many cases, he told Energi Media,. High-temperature heat in sectors such as steel and cement is less competitive at the moment, but it is expected to become more viable in the near-term as the technology improves.

For countries such as Canada, abundant low-cost clean electricity can therefore become an increasingly important industrial advantage. “If you’ve got a technology which is fundamentally superior, it is a question of when, not if,” Turner said.

Clean electricity as an industrial advantage

The B.C. program fits into a much larger economic strategy. B.C. already gets almost all of its grid electricity from hydroelectric dams, with a small percentage coming from wind and solar. The province’s Clean Energy Strategy argues that abundant clean electricity can become a competitive advantage for mines, manufacturing, and other energy-intensive industries.

That matters because industrial competition is increasingly about energy costs and carbon-intensity as well as wages and productivity. B.C.’s strategy estimates that producing a tonne of copper in the province generates more than 20 per cent fewer greenhouse-gas emissions than producing the same tonne in Chile, primarily because of B.C.’s clean electricity.

The Clean Industry Fund is one mechanism for accelerating that transition. The Canada Energy Regulator describes the fund as recycling part of B.C.’s industrial carbon-pricing revenue into low-emission technologies to protect industrial competitiveness.

Since 2019, the fund has invested more than $330 million in projects expected to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 14 million tonnes. The province says every dollar it contributes attracts another $2 from industry and other partners.

The challenge now is scale. Canada’s new National Electricity Strategy expects electricity demand to double by 2050 as transportation, buildings and industry electrify. For B.C., that means building much more clean power while helping industrial companies replace oil and gas while using energy more efficiently.

Done well, cutting industrial emissions becomes more about industrial policy while achieving the goals of climate policy.

End notes

1. B.C. Clean Industry Fund: Government of British Columbia, Clean Industry Fund and Projects funded by the Clean Industry Fund. The program supports industrial emissions-reduction projects, clean-technology demonstrations and feasibility studies.

2. Lord Adair Turner: Lord Adair Turner, chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, interview with Markham Hislop, Energi Media, 2026. Turner discussed electrification of industry, the efficiency advantages of electric technologies and Canada’s opportunity to use abundant clean electricity as an industrial competitive advantage.

3. Canada Energy Regulator: Canada’s Energy Future 2026, Appendix 1, Domestic Climate Policy Assumptions. The CER describes B.C.’s Clean Industry Fund as investing carbon-pricing revenue in low-emission technologies to support industrial competitiveness.

4. Energi Media, Canada’s Low Electrification Rate Threatens Its Future Prosperity.

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

6. Energi Media, BC Hydro’s Island Generation Purchase Raises Questions About British Columbia’s Electrification Ambitions.