Ottawa, ON — Canadian provinces are recommended to stop expanding gas infrastructure and invest in electrification to transition Canada to reliable and affordable clean energy.
The recommendation comes from research collected in the Canadian Climate Institute’s new report titled Heat Exchange.
According to the report, switching to electricity for building heat is Canada’s path to meeting its climate goals at the lowest cost. However, many places in Canada continue to resort to gas for heating.
The report also highlights that despite recent progress, Canada’s buildings
sector and its electricity and gas systems are not yet on that cost-optimal net-zero path.
If gas networks continue to grow, governments, shareholders, and remaining gas consumers could find themselves on the hook for billions of dollars in obsolete infrastructure.
According to the report, this is unlikely to change under current policy and regulatory approaches, and the continued tendency to do nothing poses risks to achieving Canada’s climate goals and ensuring affordability and reliability through the energy transition.
To ensure Canada’s transition to electrification, the report highlights the following recommendations:
- Provincial governments should equip regulators, system operators, and utilities to make decisions consistent with net zero.
- Provincial governments should stop treating gas system expansion as the default option and equip regulators to consider alternatives.
- Provincial governments should require gas utilities to provide maps of their networks to facilitate a managed transition that protects ratepayers.
- All government orders should strengthen policies to support building electrification, peak management, and energy efficiency.
- All orders of government should centre equity in policy design and provide targeted support to the most affected.
To view the full report, visit the Heat Exchange Report.