Churchill hydro project touted for “greenness”

Alberta Ends Renewable Energy Moratorium, accelerating wind and solar deployment while prioritizing grid stability, reliability, and infrastructure upgrades to attract investment, cut emissions, meet climate targets, and integrate renewables into the provincial power system.

Key Points

It is Alberta's decision to lift a pause on new wind and solar projects while enhancing grid reliability.

✅ Resumes wind and solar development across Alberta.

✅ Focuses on grid stability and infrastructure upgrades.

✅ Aims to attract investment and meet climate targets.

The Alberta government has announced the end of a temporary suspension on the development of new renewable energy projects, as the power grid operator prepares to accept green energy bids across the market. This pause, which had been in place since May 2023, was initially implemented to evaluate the effects of rapid growth in renewable energy installations on the province's power grid and overall energy system. However, the decision to lift the moratorium reflects a shift in the government’s approach to balancing energy needs and environmental goals.

The suspension was introduced amid concerns that the swift expansion of wind and solar energy projects, including documented challenges with solar energy expansion in the province, could place undue stress on Alberta's electrical grid and infrastructure. Officials expressed worries about the ability of the grid to handle the increased load and the potential need for upgrades to accommodate new renewable energy sources. The government aimed to assess the implications of this growth and determine appropriate measures to ensure that the energy system could support both existing and future demands.

The moratorium drew significant criticism from various sectors, including renewable energy companies, environmental advocates, and local communities. Critics argued that the pause was detrimental to Alberta's efforts to transition to cleaner energy sources and meet climate targets, citing cases like TransAlta scrapping a wind farm amid policy uncertainty. They pointed out that halting projects could delay investments and job creation associated with the renewable energy sector, potentially impeding progress towards a more sustainable energy future.

In response to these concerns, the Alberta government conducted further reviews and consultations. The decision to cancel the pause reflects the government’s recognition of the importance of advancing renewable energy initiatives while also addressing the need for grid stability and infrastructure development. By ending the moratorium, the government aims to support the continued growth of renewable energy projects and maintain momentum in the shift towards greener energy solutions.

The lifting of the moratorium is expected to have a positive impact on the renewable energy industry in Alberta. Several planned projects that were put on hold can now proceed, leading to renewed investment and economic benefits, including a renewable energy surge that could power 4,500 jobs across the province. The government’s decision signals a commitment to integrating renewable energy sources into the provincial grid in a way that ensures both reliability and sustainability.

Going forward, the Alberta government plans to implement measures to better manage the integration of renewable energy into the existing power infrastructure. This includes addressing any potential challenges related to grid capacity and ensuring that the growth of renewable energy projects aligns with the province's overall energy strategy, as recent federal procurement such as a $500M green electricity contract with an Edmonton company underscores demand that integration efforts must accommodate. The goal is to create a balanced approach that supports the development of clean energy while maintaining the stability and efficiency of the energy system.

The end of the moratorium aligns with Alberta’s broader objectives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote environmental sustainability within a province recognized as a powerhouse for both green energy and fossil fuels in Canada. The government’s approach reflects a willingness to adapt policies and strategies in response to evolving industry needs and environmental priorities. By removing the pause, Alberta demonstrates its commitment to fostering a diverse and resilient energy sector that can meet both current and future demands.

The decision to cancel the moratorium is also seen as a move to reinforce Alberta’s position as a leader in renewable energy development. With the lifting of restrictions, the province can continue to attract investment in clean energy projects, as neighboring jurisdictions such as B.C. streamline clean energy approvals to accelerate deployment, enhance its reputation as a progressive energy market, and contribute to global efforts to address climate change.

In summary, the Alberta government’s decision to lift the pause on renewable energy projects represents a significant shift in its approach to energy policy. The move reflects an acknowledgment of the importance of advancing renewable energy while addressing the practical challenges associated with grid management and infrastructure development. By ending the moratorium, Alberta aims to support the growth of clean energy initiatives and maintain its commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility.

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EU Solar Impact on Electricity Prices highlights how rising solar PV penetration drives negative pricing, shifts peak hours, pressures wholesale markets, and challenges grid balancing, interconnection, and flexibility amid changing demand and renewables growth.

Key Points

Explains how rising solar PV cuts wholesale prices, shifts negative-price hours, and strains grid flexibility.

✅ Negative pricing events surge with higher solar penetration.

✅ Afternoon price dips replace night-time wind-led lows.

✅ Grid balancing, interconnectors, and flexibility become critical.

The latest EU electricity market report has confirmed the affect deeper penetration of solar is having on wholesale electricity prices more broadly.

The Quarterly Report on European Electricity Markets for the final three months of last year noted the number of periods of negative electricity pricing doubled from 2019, to almost 1,600 such events, as global renewables set new records in deployment across markets.

Having experienced just three negative price events in 2019, the Netherlands recorded almost 100 last year “amid a dramatic increase in solar PV capacity,” in the nation, according to the report.

Whilst stressing the exceptional nature of the Covid-19 pandemic on power consumption patterns, the quarterly update also noted a shift in the hours during which negative electric pricing occurred in renewables poster child Germany. Previously such events were most common at night, during periods of high wind speed and low demand, but 2020 saw a switch to afternoon negative pricing. “Thus,” stated the report, “solar PV became the main driver behind prices falling into negative territory in the German market in 2020, as Germany's solar boost accelerated, and also put afternoon prices under pressure generally.”

The report also highlighted two instances of scarce electricity–in mid September and on December 9–as evidence of the problems associated with accommodating a rising proportion of intermittent clean energy capacity into the grid, and called for more joined-up cross-border power networks, amid pushback from Russian oil and gas across the continent.

Rising solar generation–along with higher gas output, year on year–also helped the Netherlands generate a net surplus of electricity last year, after being a net importer “for many years.” The EU report also noted a beneficial effect of rising solar generation capacity on Hungary‘s national electricity account, and cited a solar “boom” in that country and Poland, mirroring rapid solar PV growth in China in recent years.

With Covid-19 falls in demand helping renewables generate more of Europe's electricity (39%) than fossil fuels (36%) for the first time, as renewables surpassed fossil fuels across Europe, the market report observed the 5% of the bloc's power produced from solar closed in on the 6% accounted for by hard coal. In the final three months of the year, European solar output rose 12%, year on year, to 18 TWh and “the increase was almost single-handedly driven by Spain,” the study added.

With coal and lignite-fired power plunging 22% last year across the bloc, it is estimated the European power sector reduced its carbon footprint 14% as part of Europe's green surge although the quarterly report warned cold weather, lower wind speeds and rising gas prices in the opening months of this year are likely to see carbon emissions rebound.

There was good news on the transport front, though, with the report stating the scale of the European “electrically-charged vehicle” fleet doubled in 2020, to 2 million, with almost half a million of the new registrations arriving in the final months of the year. That meant cars with plug sockets accounted for a remarkable 17% of new purchases in Q4, twice the proportion seen in China and a slice of the pie six times bigger than such products claimed in the U.S.

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AI Load Forecasting for Utilities leverages machine learning, smart meters, and predictive analytics to balance energy demand during COVID-19 disruptions, optimize grid reliability, support demand response, and stabilize rates for residential and commercial customers.

Key Points

AI predicts utility demand with ML and smart meters to improve reliability and reduce costs.

✅ Adapts to rapid demand shifts with accurate short term forecasts

✅ Optimizes demand response and distributed energy resources

✅ Reduces outages risk while lowering procurement and operating costs

The spread of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has prompted state and local governments around the U.S. to institute shelter-in-place orders and business closures. As millions suddenly find themselves confined to their homes, the shift has strained not only internet service providers, streaming platforms, and online retailers, but the utilities supplying power to the nation’s electrical grid, which face longer, more frequent outages as well.

U.S. electricity use on March 27, 2020 was 3% lower than it was on March 27, 2019, a loss of about three years of sales growth. Peter Fox-Penner, director of the Boston University Institute for Sustainable Energy, asserted in a recent op-ed that utility revenues will suffer because providers are halting shutoffs and deferring rate increases. Moreover, according to research firm Wood Mackenzie, the rise in household electricity demand won’t offset reduced business electricity demand, mainly because residential demand makes up just 40% of the total demand across North America.

Some utilities are employing AI and machine learning for the energy transition to address the windfalls and fluctuations in energy usage resulting from COVID-19. Precise load forecasting could ensure that operations aren’t interrupted in the coming months, thereby preventing blackouts and brownouts. And they might also bolster the efficiency of utilities’ internal processes, leading to reduced prices and improved service long after the pandemic ends.

Innowatts
Innowatts, a startup developing an automated toolkit for energy monitoring and management, counts several major U.S. utility companies among its customers, including Portland General Electric, Gexa Energy, Avangrid, Arizona Public Service Electric, WGL, and Mega Energy. Its eUtility platform ingests data from over 34 million smart energy meters across 21 million customers in more than 13 regional energy markets, while its machine learning algorithms analyze the data to forecast short- and long-term loads, variances, weather sensitivity, and more.

Beyond these table-stakes predictions, Innowatts helps evaluate the effects of different rate configurations by mapping utilities’ rate structures against disaggregated cost models. It also produces cost curves for each customer that reveal the margin impacts on the wider business, and it validates the yield of products and cost of customer acquisition with models that learn the relationships between marketing efforts and customer behaviors (like real-time load).

Innowwatts told VentureBeat that it observed “dramatic” shifts in energy usage between the first and fourth weeks of March. In the Northeast, “non-essential” retailers like salons, clothing shops, and dry cleaners were using only 35% as much energy toward the end of the month (after shelter-in-place orders were enacted) versus the beginning of the month, while restaurants (excepting pizza chains) were using only 28%. In Texas, conversely, storage facilities were using 142% as much energy in the fourth week compared with the first.

Innowatts says that throughout these usage surges and declines, its clients took advantage of AI-based load forecasting to learn from short-term shocks and make timely adjustments. Within three days of shelter-in-place orders, the company said, its forecasting models were able to learn new consumption patterns and produce accurate forecasts, accounting for real-time changes.

Innowatts CEO Sid Sachdeva believes that if utility companies had not leveraged machine learning models, demand forecasts in mid-March would have seen variances of 10-20%, significantly impacting operations.

“During these turbulent times, AI-based load forecasting gives energy providers the ability to … develop informed, data-driven strategies for future success,” Sachdeva told VentureBeat. “With utilities and energy retailers seeing a once-in-a-lifetime 30%-plus drop in commercial energy consumption, accurate forecasting has never been more important. Without AI tools, utilities would see their forecasts swing wildly, leading to inaccuracies of 20% or more, placing an enormous strain on their operations and ultimately driving up costs for businesses and consumers.”

Autogrid
Autogrid works with over 50 customers in 10 countries — including Energy Australia, Florida Power & Light, and Southern California Edison — to deliver AI-informed power usage insights. Its platform makes 10 million predictions every 10 minutes and optimizes over 50 megawatts of power, which is enough to supply the average suburb.

Flex, the company’s flagship product, predicts and controls tens of thousands of energy resources from millions of customers by ingesting, storing, and managing petabytes of data from trillions of endpoints. Using a combination of data science, machine learning, and network optimization algorithms, Flex models both physics and customer behavior, automatically anticipating and adjusting for supply and demand patterns through virtual power plants that coordinate distributed assets.

Autogrid also offers a fully managed solution for integrating and utilizing end-customer installations of grid batteries and microgrids. Like Flex, it automatically aggregates, forecasts, and optimizes capacity from assets at sub-stations and transformers, reacting to distribution management needs while providing capacity to avoid capital investments in system upgrades.

Autogrid CEO Dr. Amit Narayan told VentureBeat that the COVID-19 crisis has heavily shifted daily power distribution in California, where it’s having a “significant” downward impact on hourly prices in the energy market. He says that Autogrid has also heard from customers about transformer failures in some regions due to overloaded circuits, which he expects will become a problem in heavily residential and saturated load areas during the summer months (as utilities prepare for blackouts across the U.S. when air conditioning usage goes up).

“In California, [as you’ll recall], more than a million residents faced wildfire prevention-related outages in PG&E territory in 2019,” Narayan said, referring to the controversial planned outages orchestrated by Pacific Gas & Electric last summer. “The demand continues to be high in 2020 in spite of the COVID-19 crisis, as residents prepare to keep the lights on and brace for a similar situation this summer. If a 2019 repeat happens again, it will be even more devastating, given the health crisis and difficulty in buying groceries.”

AI making a difference
AI and machine learning isn’t a silver bullet for the power grid — even with predictive tools at their disposal, utilities are beholden to a tumultuous demand curve and to mounting climate risks across the grid. But providers say they see evidence the tools are already helping to prevent the worst of the pandemic’s effects — chiefly by enabling them to better adjust to shifted daily and weekly power load profiles.

“The societal impact [of the pandemic] will continue to be felt — people may continue working remotely instead of going into the office, they may alter their commute times to avoid rush hour crowds, or may look to alternative modes of transportation,” Schneider Electric chief innovation officer Emmanuel Lagarrigue told VentureBeat. “All of this will impact the daily load curve, and that is where AI and automation can help us with maintenance, performance, and diagnostics within our homes, buildings, and in the grid.”

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U.S. Grid Modernization is critical for renewable energy integration, EV adoption, climate resilience, and reliability, requiring transmission upgrades, inter-regional links, hardened substations, and smart grid investments to handle extreme weather and decarbonization targets.

Key Points

U.S. Grid Modernization upgrades power networks to improve reliability, integrate renewables, and support EV demand.

✅ $2T+ investment needed for transmission upgrades

✅ Extreme weather doubling outages since 2017

✅ Regulatory fragmentation slows inter-regional lines

After decades of struggle, the U.S. clean-energy business is booming, with soaring electric-car sales and fast growth in wind and solar power. That’s raising hopes for the fight against climate change.

All this progress, however, could be derailed, as the green revolution stalls without a massive overhaul of America’s antiquated electric infrastructure – a task some industry experts say requires more than $2 trillion. The current network of transmission wires, substations and transformers is decaying with age and underinvestment, a condition highlighted by catastrophic failures during increasingly frequent and severe weather events.

Power outages over the last six years have more than doubled in number compared to the previous six years, according to a Reuters examination of federal data. In the past two years, power systems have collapsed in Gulf Coast hurricanes, West Coast wildfires, Midwest heat waves and a Texas deep freeze and recurring Texas grid crisis risks, causing long and sometimes deadly outages.

Compounding the problem, the seven regional grid operators in the United States are underestimating the growing threat of severe weather caused by climate change, Reuters found in a review of more than 10,000 pages of regulatory documents and operators’ public disclosures. Their risk models, used to guide transmission-network investments, consider historical weather patterns extending as far back as the 1970s. None account for scientific research documenting today’s more extreme weather and how it can disrupt grid generation, transmission and fuel supplies simultaneously.

The decrepit power infrastructure of the world’s largest economy is among the biggest obstacles to expanding clean energy and combating climate change on the ambitious schedule laid out by U.S. President Joe Biden. His administration promises to eliminate or offset carbon emissions from the power sector by 2035 and from the entire U.S. economy by 2050. Such rapid clean-energy growth would pressure the nation’s grid in two ways: Widespread EV adoption will spark a huge surge in power demand; and increasing dependence on renewable power creates reliability problems on days with less sun or wind, as seen in Texas, where experts have outlined reliability improvements that address these challenges.

The U.S. transmission network has seen outages double in recent years amid more frequent and severe weather events, driven by climate change and a utility supply-chain crunch that slows critical repairs. The system needs a massive upgrade to handle expected growth in clean energy and electric cars. 

“Competition from renewables is being strangled without adequate and necessary upgrades to the transmission network,” said Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association, which represents solar and wind companies.

The federal government, however, lacks the authority to push through the massive grid expansion and modernization needed to withstand wilder weather and accommodate EVs and renewable power. Under the current regulatory regime, and amid contentious electricity pricing proposals in recent years, the needed infrastructure investments are instead controlled by a Byzantine web of local, state and regional regulators who have strong political incentives to hold down spending, according to Reuters interviews with grid operators, federal and state regulators, and executives from utilities and construction firms.

“Competition from renewables is being strangled without adequate and necessary upgrades to the transmission network.”

Paying for major grid upgrades would require these regulators to sign off on rate increases likely to spark strong opposition from consumers and local and state politicians, who are keen to keep utility bills low. In addition, utility companies often fight investments in transmission-network improvements because they can result in new connections to other regional grids that could allow rival companies to compete on their turf, even as coal and nuclear disruptions raise brownout risks in some regions. With the advance of green energy, those inter-regional connections will become ever more essential to move power from far-flung solar and wind installations to population centers.

The power-sharing among states and regions with often conflicting interests makes it extremely challenging to coordinate any national strategy to modernize the grid, said Alison Silverstein, an independent industry consultant and former senior adviser to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

“The politics are a freakin’ nightmare,” she said.

The FERC declined to comment for this story. FERC Commissioner Mark Christie, a Republican, acknowledged the limitations of the agency’s power over the U.S. grid in an April 21 agency meeting involving transmission planning and costs.

“We can’t force states to do anything,” Christie said.

The White House and Energy Department did not comment in response to detailed questions from Reuters on the Biden administration’s plans to tackle U.S. grid problems and their impact on green-energy expansion.

The administration said in an April news release that it plans to offer $2.5 billion in grants for grid-modernization projects as part of Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure package, complementing a proposed clean electricity standard to accelerate decarbonization over the next decade. A modernized grid, the release said, is the “linchpin” of Biden’s clean-energy agenda.

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CO2 Removal Technologies address climate change via negative emissions, including carbon capture, reforestation, soil carbon, biochar, BECCS, DAC, and mineralization, helping meet Paris Agreement targets while managing costs, land use, and infrastructure demands.

Key Points

Methods to extract or sequester atmospheric CO2, combining natural and engineered approaches to limit warming.

✅ Includes reforestation, soil carbon, biochar, BECCS, DAC, mineralization

✅ Balances climate goals with costs, land, energy, and infrastructure

✅ Key to Paris Agreement targets under 1.5-2.0 °C warming

The world is, on average, 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer today than it was in 1850. If this trend continues, our planet will be 2 – 3 degrees hotter by the end of this century, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The main reason for this temperature rise is higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which cause the atmosphere to trap heat radiating from the Earth into space. Since 1850, the proportion of CO2 in the air has increased, with record greenhouse gas concentrations documented, from 0.029% to 0.041% (288 ppm to 414 ppm).

This is directly related to the burning of coal, oil and gas, which were created from forests, plankton and plants over millions of years. Back then, they stored CO2 and kept it out of the atmosphere, but as fossil fuels are burned, that CO2 is released. Other contributing factors include industrialized agriculture and slash-and-burn land clearing techniques, and emissions from SF6 in electrical equipment are also concerning today.

Over the past 50 years, more than 1200 billion tons of CO2 have been emitted into the planet's atmosphere — 36.6 billion tons in 2018 alone, though global emissions flatlined in 2019 before rising again. As a result, the global average temperature has risen by 0.8 degrees in just half a century.

Atmospheric CO2 should remain at a minimum
In 2015, the world came together to sign the Paris Climate Agreement which set the goal of limiting global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees — 1.5 degrees, if possible.

The agreement limits the amount of CO2 that can be released into the atmosphere, providing a benchmark for the global energy transition now underway. According to the IPCC, if a maximum of around 300 billion tons were emitted, there would be a 50% chance of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. If CO2 emissions remain the same, however, the CO2 'budget' would be used up in just seven years.

According to the IPCC's report on the 1.5 degree target, negative emissions are also necessary to achieve the climate targets.

Using reforestation to remove CO2
One planned measure to stop too much CO2 from being released into the atmosphere is reforestation. According to studies, 3.6 billion tons of CO2 — around 10% of current CO2 emissions — could be saved every year during the growth phase. However, a study by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, stresses that achieving this would require the use of land areas equivalent in size to the entire US.

Young trees at a reforestation project in Africa (picture-alliance/OKAPIA KG, Germany)
Reforestation has potential to tackle the climate crisis by capturing CO2. But it would require a large amount of space

More humus in the soil
Humus in the soil stores a lot of carbon. But this is being released through the industrialization of agriculture. The amount of humus in the soil can be increased by using catch crops and plants with deep roots as well as by working harvest remnants back into the ground and avoiding deep plowing. According to a study by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) on using targeted CO2 extraction as a part of EU climate policy, between two and five billion tons of CO2 could be saved with a global build-up of humus reserves.

Biochar shows promise
Some scientists see biochar as a promising technology for keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere. Biochar is created when organic material is heated and pressurized in a zero or very low-oxygen environment. In powdered form, the biochar is then spread on arable land where it acts as a fertilizer. This also increases the amount of carbon content in the soil. According to the same study from the SWP, global application of this technology could save between 0.5 and two billion tons of CO2 every year.

Storing CO2 in the ground
Storing CO2 deep in the Earth is already well-known and practiced on Norway's oil fields, for example. However, the process is still controversial, as storing CO2 underground can lead to earthquakes and leakage in the long-term. A different method is currently being practiced in Iceland, in which CO2 is sequestered into porous basalt rock to be mineralized into stone. Both methods still require more research, however, with new DOE funding supporting carbon capture, utilization, and storage.

Capturing CO2 to be held underground is done by using chemical processes which effectively extract the gas from the ambient air, and some researchers are exploring CO2-to-electricity concepts for utilization. This method is known as direct air capture (DAC) and is already practiced in other parts of Europe.  As there is no limit to the amount of CO2 that can be captured, it is considered to have great potential. However, the main disadvantage is the cost — currently around €550 ($650) per ton. Some scientists believe that mass production of DAC systems could bring prices down to €50 per ton by 2050. It is already considered a key technology for future climate protection.

The inside of a carbon capture facility in the Netherlands (RWE AG)
Carbon capture facilities are still very expensive and take up a huge amount of space

Another way of extracting CO2 from the air is via biomass. Plants grow and are burned in a power plant to produce electricity. CO2 is then extracted from the exhaust gas of the power plant and stored deep in the Earth, with new U.S. power plant rules poised to test such carbon capture approaches.

The big problem with this technology, known as bio-energy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is the huge amount of space required. According to Felix Creutzig from the Mercator Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) in Berlin, it will therefore only play "a minor role" in CO2 removal technologies.

CO2 bound by rock minerals
In this process, carbonate and silicate rocks are mined, ground and scattered on agricultural land or on the surface water of the ocean, where they collect CO2 over a period of years. According to researchers, by the middle of this century it would be possible to capture two to four billion tons of CO2 every year using this technique. The main challenges are primarily the quantities of stone required, and building the necessary infrastructure. Concrete plans have not yet been researched.

Not an option: Fertilizing the sea with iron
The idea is use iron to fertilize the ocean, thereby increasing its nuturient content, which would allow plankton to grow stronger and capture more CO2. However, both the process and possible side effects are very controversial. "This is rarely treated as a serious option in research," concludes SWP study authors Oliver Geden and Felix Schenuit.

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Canada Net-Zero Electricity Buildout will double or triple power capacity, scaling clean energy, renewables, nuclear, hydro, and grid transmission, with faster permitting, Indigenous consultation, and trillions in investment to meet 2035 non-emitting regulations.

Key Points

A national plan to rapidly expand clean, non-emitting power and grid capacity to enable a net-zero economy by 2050.

✅ Double to triple generation; all sources non-emitting by 2035

✅ Accelerate permitting, transmission, and Indigenous partnerships

✅ Trillions in investment; cross-jurisdictional coordination

Canada must build more electricity generation in the next 25 years than it has over the last century in order to support a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, says a new report from the Public Policy Forum.

Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and shifting to emissions-free electricity, as provinces such as Ontario pursue new wind and solar to ease a supply crunch, to propel our cars, heat our homes and run our factories will require doubling — possibly tripling — the amount of power we make now, the federal government estimates.

"Imagine every dam, turbine, nuclear plant and solar panel across Canada and then picture a couple more next to them," said the report, which will be published Wednesday.

It's going to cost a lot, and in Ontario, greening the grid could cost $400 billion according to one report. Most estimates are in the trillions.

It's also going to require the kind of cross-jurisdictional co-operation, with lessons from Europe's power crisis underscoring the stakes, Indigenous consultation and swift decision-making and construction that Canada just isn't very good at, the report said.

"We have a date with destiny," said Edward Greenspon, president of the Public Policy Forum. "We need to build, build, build. We're way behind where we need to be and we don't have a lot of a lot of time remaining."

Later this summer, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault will publish new regulations to require that all power be generated from non-emitting sources by 2035 clean electricity goals, as proposed.

Greenspon said that means there are two major challenges ahead: massively expanding how much power we make and making all of it clean, even though some natural gas generation will be permitted under federal rules.

On average, it takes more than four years just to get a new electricity generating project approved by Ottawa, and more than three years for new transmission lines.

That's before a single shovel touches any dirt.

Building these facilities is another thing, and provinces such as Ontario face looming electricity shortfalls as projects drag on. The Site C dam in British Columbia won't come on line until 2025 and has been under construction since 2015. A new transmission line from northern Manitoba to the south took more than 11 years from the first proposal to operation.

"We need to move very quickly, and probably with a different approach ... no hurdles, no timeouts," Greenspon said.

There are significant unanswered questions about the new power mix, and the pace at which Canada moves away from fossil fuel power is one of the biggest political issues facing the country, with debates over whether scrapping coal-fired electricity is cost-effective still unresolved.

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