Latest news with #CleanElectricityRegulations
Canada Standard
06-05-2025
- Business
- Canada Standard
Alberta Court Case Will Drive Off Investment, Add Uncertainty to Power Market, Pembina Institute Warns
The Alberta government is adding more uncertainty to the province's electricity market and driving away investment in a modernized system by launching a constitutional challenge to Ottawa's Clean Electricity Regulations, the Pembina Institute warned in a statement last week. When the former Trudeau government published the final regulations late last year, the revised version postponed the deadline to fully decarbonize Canada's power grids from 2035 to 2050, scaled back the power sector's mid-century emissions reduction target from 342 to 181 million tonnes, offered provinces greater flexibility to run back-up gas plants, and earmarked more than C$60 billion in financial support to expand the clean electricity system. But at a news conference last Thursday announcing the court action, Premier Danielle Smith still maintained the regulations will harm the affordability and reliability of Alberta's electricity grid, which is currently powered largely by natural gas. Smith, who invoked her controversial Sovereignty Act for the first time in 2023 against an earlier draft of the regulations, said Ottawa's goals are too far-fetched and a breach of provincial jurisdiction, The Canadian Press reports. "This is about protecting the lives and livelihoods of Albertans," Smith said, saying the regulations would increase electricity costs by more than 30%. "We will not accept the reckless and dangerous policies-policies that will harm our economy, stifle our energy industry, jeopardize the reliability of our electricity grid, and raise electricity prices for Albertans." But in a statement Thursday, the Pembina Institute's senior electricity analyst Jason Wang said Smith's objections "are based on unpublished analysis from the Alberta Electric System Operator and are unchanged from the concerns that Alberta repeatedly raised in 2023 and 2024 during engagement with the Government of Canada." Although the final version of the Clean Electricity Regulations addressed the province's specific issues with the draft rules, "Alberta continues to cite these same concerns, as if no such collaboration between it and the federal government ever took place." View our latest digests Wang added that the court action puts Alberta out of step with an accelerating shift away from fossil-fuelled electricity. "At a time when other governments across this country and across the world are attracting investment in low-cost, secure, clean power, and modernizing their electricity grids to be fit for the needs of the next century, Alberta is introducing yet more uncertainty to its electricity market," he said. "This will further undermine investment confidence at the worst possible time." On Thursday, Smith maintained the deep concessions in the final regulations mean little, CP writes, because Ottawa is still overstepping. "It violates the Constitution, and we're going to argue that vigorously in court," she said. Abandoning the regulations was one of the nine demands Smith laid out for the next federal government in advance of last Monday's election. Speaking just three days after the vote, Smith said she'd received no indication that the new government led by Prime Minister Mark Carney will take action on the file. "It depends very much on whether we have pragmatic Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney as our prime minister, or whether we have environmental extremist, keep it in the ground, phase out fossil fuels... Mark Carney as prime minister," she said. "I don't know the answer to that yet." Carney's office did not respond to a request for comment. Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi told reporters that Smith seems more concerned about fighting with Ottawa than striking a deal beneficial for both levels of government. "Three days in with no minister in place, no one to fight against, she launches this lawsuit," Nenshi said, referring to how Carney has yet to appoint a new cabinet. "If she sat down with the prime minister and made a deal, we would have proper regulations that would bring certainty for investment to Alberta within the next month. Instead, she's going to take years." Nenshi agreed the federal regulations would be punishing for Alberta, but said Smith's insistence on taking Ottawa to court rather than negotiating will only make that punishment worse. "We heard (Carney) talk about Canada as a clean and conventional energy superpower," Nenshi said. "So rather than insulting him and saying, 'You're lying,' why not give him an opportunity to prove that he wasn't lying?" On Monday, Smith said she would convene and chair a "sovereignty panel" to consider "how the province can protect itself from perceived economic incursions from the federal Liberal government," CBC reports. The most popular proposals will be put to a referendum in 2026. "The world looks at us like we've lost our minds," she said. "We have the most abundant and accessible natural resources of any country on earth, and yet we landlock them, sell what we do produce to a single customer to the south of us, while enabling polluting dictatorships to eat our lunch." While Smith blamed that state of affairs on "unbearable" attacks by the federal government, the historical record tells a rather different story. In a report issued in March, the Pembina Institute's Jason Wang said Alberta is right to focus on the affordability and reliability of its power grid, but is "swimming against the tide by focusing on gas to run its grid long into the future." That strategy "erodes its attractiveness as an investment destination-given that we know demand for low-cost, clean power is going to keep growing as new power-hungry industries, like data centres, look for places to set up business." In his statement Thursday, Wang said the Alberta government has spent the last two years stifling the province's renewable energy sector "under repeated layers of regulatory and policy uncertainty," while failing to fully draw on "the range of tools at its disposal to build a grid fit for the future-such as renewables, interties, transmission, and demand-side measures; exactly the technologies that the CER guides investment towards." Rather than presenting "any alternate plan for its future electricity system," he added, "the province is claiming that a continuation of the status quo gas-fired power is the only solution to reliability and affordability. In the meantime, Alberta's communities are missing out on billions of dollars of investment and tax revenues that clean electricity projects would bring." This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2025. Source: The Energy Mix
Canada News.Net
06-05-2025
- Business
- Canada News.Net
Alberta Court Case Will Drive Off Investment, Add Uncertainty to Power Market, Pembina Institute Warns
The Alberta government is adding more uncertainty to the province's electricity market and driving away investment in a modernized system by launching a constitutional challenge to Ottawa's Clean Electricity Regulations, the Pembina Institute warned in a statement last week. When the former Trudeau government published the final regulations late last year, the revised version postponed the deadline to fully decarbonize Canada's power grids from 2035 to 2050, scaled back the power sector's mid-century emissions reduction target from 342 to 181 million tonnes, offered provinces greater flexibility to run back-up gas plants, and earmarked more than C$60 billion in financial support to expand the clean electricity system. But at a news conference last Thursday announcing the court action, Premier Danielle Smith still maintained the regulations will harm the affordability and reliability of Alberta's electricity grid, which is currently powered largely by natural gas. Smith, who invoked her controversial Sovereignty Act for the first time in 2023 against an earlier draft of the regulations, said Ottawa's goals are too far-fetched and a breach of provincial jurisdiction, The Canadian Press reports. "This is about protecting the lives and livelihoods of Albertans," Smith said, saying the regulations would increase electricity costs by more than 30%. "We will not accept the reckless and dangerous policies-policies that will harm our economy, stifle our energy industry, jeopardize the reliability of our electricity grid, and raise electricity prices for Albertans." But in a statement Thursday, the Pembina Institute's senior electricity analyst Jason Wang said Smith's objections "are based on unpublished analysis from the Alberta Electric System Operator and are unchanged from the concerns that Alberta repeatedly raised in 2023 and 2024 during engagement with the Government of Canada." Although the final version of the Clean Electricity Regulations addressed the province's specific issues with the draft rules, "Alberta continues to cite these same concerns, as if no such collaboration between it and the federal government ever took place." Wang added that the court action puts Alberta out of step with an accelerating shift away from fossil-fuelled electricity. "At a time when other governments across this country and across the world are attracting investment in low-cost, secure, clean power, and modernizing their electricity grids to be fit for the needs of the next century, Alberta is introducing yet more uncertainty to its electricity market," he said. "This will further undermine investment confidence at the worst possible time." On Thursday, Smith maintained the deep concessions in the final regulations mean little, CP writes, because Ottawa is still overstepping. "It violates the Constitution, and we're going to argue that vigorously in court," she said. Abandoning the regulations was one of the nine demands Smith laid out for the next federal government in advance of last Monday's election. Speaking just three days after the vote, Smith said she'd received no indication that the new government led by Prime Minister Mark Carney will take action on the file. "It depends very much on whether we have pragmatic Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney as our prime minister, or whether we have environmental extremist, keep it in the ground, phase out fossil fuels... Mark Carney as prime minister," she said. "I don't know the answer to that yet." Carney's office did not respond to a request for comment. Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi told reporters that Smith seems more concerned about fighting with Ottawa than striking a deal beneficial for both levels of government. "Three days in with no minister in place, no one to fight against, she launches this lawsuit," Nenshi said, referring to how Carney has yet to appoint a new cabinet. "If she sat down with the prime minister and made a deal, we would have proper regulations that would bring certainty for investment to Alberta within the next month. Instead, she's going to take years." Nenshi agreed the federal regulations would be punishing for Alberta, but said Smith's insistence on taking Ottawa to court rather than negotiating will only make that punishment worse. "We heard (Carney) talk about Canada as a clean and conventional energy superpower," Nenshi said. "So rather than insulting him and saying, 'You're lying,' why not give him an opportunity to prove that he wasn't lying?" On Monday, Smith said she would convene and chair a "sovereignty panel" to consider "how the province can protect itself from perceived economic incursions from the federal Liberal government," CBC reports. The most popular proposals will be put to a referendum in 2026. "The world looks at us like we've lost our minds," she said. "We have the most abundant and accessible natural resources of any country on earth, and yet we landlock them, sell what we do produce to a single customer to the south of us, while enabling polluting dictatorships to eat our lunch." While Smith blamed that state of affairs on "unbearable" attacks by the federal government, the historical record tells a rather different story. In a report issued in March, the Pembina Institute's Jason Wang said Alberta is right to focus on the affordability and reliability of its power grid, but is "swimming against the tide by focusing on gas to run its grid long into the future." That strategy "erodes its attractiveness as an investment destination-given that we know demand for low-cost, clean power is going to keep growing as new power-hungry industries, like data centres, look for places to set up business." In his statement Thursday, Wang said the Alberta government has spent the last two years stifling the province's renewable energy sector "under repeated layers of regulatory and policy uncertainty," while failing to fully draw on "the range of tools at its disposal to build a grid fit for the future-such as renewables, interties, transmission, and demand-side measures; exactly the technologies that the CER guides investment towards." Rather than presenting "any alternate plan for its future electricity system," he added, "the province is claiming that a continuation of the status quo gas-fired power is the only solution to reliability and affordability. In the meantime, Alberta's communities are missing out on billions of dollars of investment and tax revenues that clean electricity projects would bring." This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2025. Source: The Energy Mix
National Post
05-05-2025
- Politics
- National Post
Jamie Sarkonak: Alberta is right to challenge Ottawa's clean-electricity overstep
If more provinces stood up for themselves when the feds started encroaching, we'd be a lot better off as a country. That in mind, it was good to see Alberta announce on Thursday that it would be challenging the federal Clean Electricity Regulations, which became law in December. Article content Article content The new rules aim to net-zeroify the entire Canadian grid by 2050, banning carbon emissions by new units with at least 25 MW of electrical generation capacity over a preset 'technology-neutral annual emissions limit' by 2035; the ban will also cover existing units by 2050 at the latest. It's expected to cost the country $40 billion from now until 2050 — and it's justified because magic math in Ottawa pegs the benefits to society in that time will be worth $55 billion. Article content Aside from spelling disaster in Alberta (and other provinces, to a lesser extent), there's a pesky little document that could stand in its way: the Constitution. In 1867, it was decided that legislating on the 'development, conservation and management of sites and facilities … for the generation and production of electrical energy' was exclusively the job of provincial legislatures. Article content Article content On that basis alone, the Clean Electricity Regulations should have set off alarm bells in premiers' offices across the country. Premier Danielle Smith saw that plain and clear. Article content 'Section 92 of the Constitution … enumerates our exclusive jurisdiction,' she said Thursday, speaking at a news conference. 'That's the word (used) in the Constitution: 'exclusive' jurisdiction over resource development and the development of electricity — and there's a reason for that. It's because every province has different endowments and different abilities to generate electricity. That is why it has been assigned to the provinces to make these decisions.' Article content Like Smith, the feds are well aware that Alberta is a fossil-fuel rich province that relies on natural gas for most of its power and does not have an abundance of dammable rivers. This was explained in the regulatory impact analysis statement that was released alongside the official, final version of the Clean Electricity Regulations. Article content 'Notably, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and to some extent, New Brunswick and Ontario, rely more on unabated emitting generation than the national average. Accordingly, these provinces are expected to experience the biggest shift in generation sources as a result of the Regulations.' In other words, 'You guys better get ready to lay out a whole lot of solar panels.' Article content Article content As for who will feel the most pain, take a wild guess: 'Ontario and Alberta are modelled to take on nearly 70 per cent of the total costs net of cost-savings accounted for in the (cost benefit analysis), largely driven by incremental capital costs for new electricity system capacity.' Article content Before the regulations were finalized, Alberta did its best to express concerns with the real-life effects of the proposed framework. For example, the draft regulations proposed to cap power generation at peaker plants, which run at peak times to ensure blackouts don't happen, at 450 hours per year, which would limit these facilities to using only five per cent of their capacity. Alberta protested, and the time limits were removed — but even so, the other provisions of the regulations will cap these facilities to operating at a maximum of 20 per cent capacity. In the end, it means Ottawa is still strangling the provinces' ability to manage their grids at peak times.
Epoch Times
03-05-2025
- Business
- Epoch Times
Alberta to Challenge Constitutionality of Ottawa's Net-Zero Electricity Regulations
Alberta is taking Ottawa to the province's Court of Appeal over the federal government's net-zero electricity regulations, arguing the rules overstep provincial jurisdiction and could drive up costs while increasing the risk of power outages. The province 'We will not accept the reckless and dangerous policies—policies that will harm our economy, stifle our energy industry, jeopardize the reliability of our electricity grid, and raise electricity prices for Albertans,' Smith said. The Clean Electricity Regulations are part of Ottawa's plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. They The federal government last December Meanwhile, the current framework, finalized in December 2024, provides interim targets generators must meet by 2035, which Smith has also Related Stories 1/1/2025 11/26/2023 Ottawa 'Cutting pollution in communities across the country is good for our climate, economy, health, and well-being,' Ottawa has also highlighted the potential economic opportunities it says clean energy could create for Canada. 'Building a clean, affordable, and reliable electricity system is at the foundation of Canada's efforts to tackle climate change, and a generational opportunity to drive clean economic growth across the country for decades to come,' then-Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in a February 2024 During her May 1 address, Smith cited an Ottawa Participants in the engagements included electric utility companies, provincial and territorial governments, indigenous groups, industry associations, environmental non-governmental organizations, unions, researchers and academics, and the general public, according to the government. Alberta currently relies on natural gas for 75 percent of its power generation, according to provincial estimates. The premier has previously Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery 'Canada's constitution is absolutely clear,' Amery said at the May 1 press conference. 'The provinces have exclusive jurisdiction over the development, conservation, and management of sites for the generation and production of electrical energy.' Ottawa Asked why the legal challenge was launched as newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney has yet to take action in office, Amery said the province had raised concerns about the regulations since early 2024 but 'they were ignored.' In its Amery added that Carney had expressed support for net-zero emissions policies both before and during the election campaign. The prime minister, who has been a strong 'We've seen no indication that it is going to change,' Amery said, referring to Carney's advocacy for net-zero policies. 'It is our intention now to refer the matter to the Court of Appeal.'
CTV News
01-05-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Smith to give updated response to Clean Electricity Regulations
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith provides an update on the province's response to Canada's Clean Electricity Regulations, LIVE here.
