Canada a laggard in global clean electricity race, new report shows

“Renewables generated a record 30% of global electricity in 2023, driven by growth in solar and wind.” – Global Electricity Review 2024, Ember

My first tattoo, if my wife ever permits it, will read, “electricity is the foundation of the 21st century economy.” If my bicep was bigger, I’d add “clean, abundant, low-cost” to the beginning. On the other bicep would be a shocked-face emoji to symbolize how unexpectedly fast renewable energy is scaling around the world, as Ember’s new report points out in detail. But what does it all mean for Canada?

The Global Electricity Review 2024’s top line is that wind and solar are taking over global power grids. To paraphrase William Gibson, however, the renewables future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed. 

China has become the global wind and solar juggernaut, accounting for half (51%) of solar and 60 per cent of new wind generation last year. What caught my attention is that half of the country’s solar is residential installations, suggesting that the economics of putting panels on a rooftop and selling power back to the grid have finally become competitive. 

China also dominates solar panel manufacturing (80% of global output). Relentless investment spurred by the national government’s aggressive industrial policies has created incredible manufacturing over-capacity, which in turn has collapsed prices. Consumers and utilities are installing solar because it’s dirt-cheap, as well as relatively quick and easy to bring online. Ember says that faster growth is expected starting this year.

At this point, the United States and Europe are chasing China. As Ember describes in considerable detail, the EU (24%) and Brazil (7%) were the other big contributors to wind power growth, while the EU (12%) and the US (11%) duked it out for second place in solar.

The US and EU may never catch China, which continues to heavily subsidize “new energy” industrial expansion, but they are spending trillions over the next decade to try. That effort, in turn, will force emerging economies like India to draft in behind the leaders if they hope to not get left behind.

The global clean energy arms race is the foundation for the Cold War 2.0 that China and the US are careering towards.

Where does that leave Canada?

Canada appears only occasionally in Ember’s report. For example, it leads the world in electricity consumption per capita by a wide margin at 15.9 MWh. The US comes in second and it’s not even close. The global average is 3.7. 

Canadians are quite the electricity piggies, but at least our gluttony is offset by a relatively clean power grid (only France and  Brazil are cleaner). More than 80 per cent comes from hydro (58%), nuclear (14%), and most of the rest from wind and solar. 

Clean, abundant, low-cost power and reliable electricity systems have spoiled Canada. Uptake of renewables is well below that of other advanced economies because, well, Canada didn’t have to purge a high percentage of coal generation or modernize a creaky old grid like the Americans. 

But there is an even more important issue that doesn’t get the attention it deserves: the role of energy incumbents in slow-walking change.

Canada is a G7 nation with a modest population (38 million), a relatively small economy, and a constitution that delegates jurisdiction over natural resources, including energy, to the provinces. There is no national power grid, just 10 electricity fiefdoms controlled by government-owned monopolies or, in the case of Alberta and Ontario, utility oligopolies. The federal government has limited power and tiptoes cautiously through the minefield of prickly provincial governments who jealously guard their right to exploit oil, gas, electricity, uranium, and hydroelectric sectors.

In a country where Ottawa-bashing is a national sport, provincial governments of all political stripes are often the most hoary of incumbents. 

BC and Quebec have the most progressive climate and energy plans, but they’re not exactly California. Ontario has been slow to respond, though recent large investments in electric vehicle plants and supply chains (supported by federal cash) are changing Premier Doug Ford’s tune. Alberta and Saskatchewan are so hidebound that they make Florida look like a communist state. The rest are somewhere in between.

Consequently, Canada is not China, not the United States under the Biden Administration, certainly not the European Union, arguably not Australia, and not even a Southeast Asia tiger like Vietnam. Once again, as it has done for far too many decades, Canada is “muddling through.” Not the worst, not the best, but good enough.

Heads are now exploding in think tanks and federal departments across the country, where maintaining the fiction that Canada is at the forefront of emissions reduction and energy policy must be maintained at all costs. The truth is that Canada was a leader in the 20th century energy economy of coal, oil, gas, nuclear, and hydro, but not so much in 2024.

Muddling through might be a fine strategy if the rest of the planet wasn’t pivoting so rapidly to new clean energy technologies on both the supply and demand sides. That’s the real significance of the Ember report. The meteoric expansion of renewable energy is there for all to see, while also exposing Canada as a laggard, not a leader.

Let me leave you with what should be the most important question facing this country.

Will Canada expand clean electricity generation to passively follow electricity demand growth or will it aggressively use its clean power potential as a competitive advantage to attract investment in 21st century industries like data centres and clean energy manufacturing?

Will it lead or lag?

There is no more important climate, energy, or economic question to be answered.

 

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