Current Affairs

Issue 62 - February 2024

New Faces of the Industry award celebrates individuals in the electricity sector

Starting this coming National Electricity Month in June, Electricity Canada will be celebrating the people who innovate and the lead the electricity sector with our new “Faces of the Industry” campaign and award.

As we all know, the electricity sector has some of the most talented people working today. We have innovators, visionaries, leaders, even heroes. This award came about because we should celebrate this talent. The electricity sector isn’t just companies: it’s made up of people. The Faces of the Industry award is designed to put a human face on the work our sector is doing right now.

This spring, Electricity Canada will be awarding six individuals within the electricity sector, nominated by you, as Faces of the Industry. These winners will become part of Electricity Canada’s National Electricity Month social media campaign in June and will take part in events during that month.

We are looking for a member companies to nominate people in all aspects of the electricity sector from lineworking to engineering to safety to construction and everything else. These people will need to have demonstrated outstanding achievements in their field, as well as innovation and leadership.

The nomination form is on our website. Nominations close on March 15, 2024. This award is sponsored by PTI Transformers.

What better time to start thinking about the future than bright and early into the new year?

Current Affairs sits down with Dan Gent, Director of Transmission and Reliability for a weather recap.

Hi Dan, thank you for joining us. Extreme weather was a huge topic in 2023 for Electricity Canada members. Wildfires in general wiped out over 3000 hydro poles, we’ve had tornados and hurricanes, ice storms in the middle of April, it’s been hot, it’s been cold, it’s been rainy, and it’s been dry… What’s the forecast for 2024?

I’ve heard a lot about wildfires, last year, and honestly, we should expect wildfires again this year, hopefully not as much as 18 million hectares burning, which was a Canadian record. Thousands of poles destroyed and some of those fires caused direct blackouts in major urban centres. Now as for the rest, I’m no meteorologist, but I believe we can expect 2024 to be another rocky year. El Nino, the warmer and dryer air phenomenon we are experiencing right now, is not expected to end until February and some reports have said March. And with El Nino, comes a warmer remainder of the year, and with heat the effects of it, from droughts to wildfires and because heat, stress on the electricity grid.

Because of El Nino, I believe we should expect to see even more hurricanes in the Atlantic, who have seen already their fair share in the last few years.

How do our members prepare for this kind of weather every year? And if something is broken, how do we fix it?

Three words. Plan, plan and, plan. Companies in our industry must plan for the worst. Utilities develop predictive analysis on weather patterns that overlay the grid to identify weak spots and shore them up before the storm arrives. That way, we can analyze what will get hit and potentially how hard and look into bringing in reinforcements like mutual assistance if necessary.

There is a need to ensure we have replacement parts. Obsolescence is not an option. Electricity Canada has discussed this extensively regarding the final phase-out of pentachlorophenol-treated utility poles. We need to be creative and find solutions for replacing damaged and broken equipment when the supply chain is not there for us. We also need to ensure we have the skills and people in place to solve the challenges we will face today and tomorrow.

What do we need changed at a regulatory level to make this easier?

This is a great question. Provincial regulators are for the most part “economic regulators”. They want to see affordable rates and a reliable grid which requires a lot of reporting from utilities to make decisions.

It would be wonderful if regulators could see what else can they do to enable stronger reliability and improved resiliency for electricity providers. Can they create a research and development program for wildfire mitigation techniques, like they have in Australia?

Maybe regulators can look at new utility programs geared towards improving reliability and create a pilot project in partnership with the utilities. We can’t be doing the same things anymore. Climate change is here to stay. All stakeholders in hour industry need to spin things around and address our problems differently.

In 1998, an ice storm wiped parts of Quebec and parts of Ontario for over a week. Could this happen today and are we ready for it?

Oh yes, 1998 brings back memories. We had a State of Emergency, the military was called in, ice and fallen trees crushed transmission towers. Depending on where you lived you may not have received power back for 6 weeks or more. It was a challenging time for many people.

To answer your question, never say never.

I believe the grid is stronger now with newer standards in place. Transmission towers can now withstand even more weight, we have newer tools and technologies. There are many lessons we learned from the 1998 ice storm. I don’t think it can never happen again, in the age of ever persistent storms however, I do think we are better prepared and more resilient now then ever before.

A year in review with Francis Bradley

After this November’s Powering Partnerships Symposium and board meeting, Electricity Canada settles into December, reflects on an incredible year and prepares for what is on the horizon! Current Affairs sat down with President and CEO Francis Bradley for a 2023 recap.

Hi Francis, thank you for joining us. This year has already been a standout, beginning with the Federal Budget’s investments of electrification and ending with the draft Clean Energy Regulations. What has been the most exciting thing to see?

I think from my perspective it would be the first of those, the federal budget and its investment. This is the first time we've actually seen real and substantial support for clean electricity investments from the Government of Canada. This is absolutely historic! We’ve been suggesting for many years now that decarbonization through electrification is a public good. It's a national priority and it’s an expansion on the electricity system to meet this national aspiration. As a public good, the additional costs relating to meeting our greenhouse gas reduction ambitions should be borne by society as a whole, not just by electricity customers, because the electricity sector is expected to decarbonize the rest of the economy. As a result, we need to look at how we're funding this, and fund it appropriately.

One in every $8 of new spending in the budget is aimed at clean electricity investments. That's a great story. However, this is not a silver bullet. But it is a start. It’s a very important first step and it shows a willingness on the part of the federal government to put its money where its mouth is, to use the words of Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault on the night of the budget.

We’ve just hosted one of our biggest events of the year at Powering Partnerships highlighting “The Future Of…” with topics discussing the North, technology, artificial intelligence, transportation, electricity, and the future of people, what is your take on the future of Electricity Canada as an organization?

As an association, we've been the nucleus of the electricity sector for more than 132 years. I've been here for 37 of those years. What I've seen in my time here is that we’ve been successful as an organization because we’re able to repeatedly reinvent ourselves and, like the industry we represent, we are nimble in that way.

When I began here at Electricity Canada, or should I say when I began here two name changes ago when we were the Canadian Electrical Association, our primary focus was operational: it was information exchange of a technical nature and technical research. Now, we’ve evolved over time and we’ve changed as the needs of the industry have changed in terms of what they need from a national association. Consequently, we’ve become an advocacy organization. Since our last strategic plan, we're increasingly now focused really on the future – on emerging issues and on the policy, legislative and regulatory changes that are going to be required to enable that.

I think Powering Partnerships really was a great example of that future focus. It was the culmination of the changes that we've been bringing to the association for the past several years in terms of making sure that we were clearly focused on the future.

What are the biggest challenges and opportunities for the electricity sector in 2024?

It’s going to be all about reliability, affordability and decarbonization. Certainly, in the year ahead, but not just in the year ahead. In fact, it will continue to be about reliability, affordability and decarbonization out to 2050 – and how we balance those three things. We need to work out what are the policies that we need in order to reach our aspirations of a net zero economy in 2050.

So, 2024, is the next step in all of this is that we have to figure out how we get good projects built and how we get them built faster.

We also need to simplify the approval process and get rid of overlapping processes and we need to get rid of duplication between different levels of government.

Furthermore, to do all this we're going to need people to achieve the energy transition. Unfortunately, I see nothing in 2024 that suggests that we'll suddenly have a solution to the skills and talent shortage. There are a lot of people seeking to address this problem, including our members and our partners at Electricity Human Resources Canada.

The other thing that keeps me worrying is supply chains. The delays for critical equipment is actually growing – I'm hearing this from a quite a few of our members that those delays are not getting shorter. There is also competition from other sectors that have very similar needs and are also growing such as transportation, telecommunication. And there’s competition from the U.S. thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act.

In 2024 while these challenges will absolutely be a high priority for us. However, but they are also opportunities. In fact, I think I think there are huge opportunities when we're talking about building that cleaner, brighter and better future.

We have the opportunity to develop and implement new technologies and new solutions that are going to result in making life better through a cleaner economy, more comfort, more convenience for customers. And we also have this opportunity to do so equitably, and use the massive growth that we're going to see in the electricity sector to be the means for reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples as our sector increasingly welcomes them as partners.

Switching gears here, you are almost at the 90th episode of the Flux Capacitor. Who would be your dream guest when you crack 100 and why?

If I could use my Flux Capacitor time machine, I’d go back to 1891 and I'd bring in J.J. Wright, the founder of this organization. I’d put him in the passenger seat of the DeLorean and bring them to the future so that he'd look around and I suspect his initial reaction would be amazement at all that has happened and how different society is because of the electrification. On the other hand, maybe he'd be disappointed coming from 1891 and jumping out to 2023 and looking around and wondering where's the flying car?

If I had to pick somebody who was a living person… I would get Bill Gates as a guest on the podcast. He would be absolutely fascinating to talk about generally because of all that he's done throughout his career and the massive impact on a lot of the technologies that he's brought forward. I'd like to really unpack with him the book he wrote a couple of years ago, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.

It was a fascinating read, and while it was about the impending climate disaster, and it was very hopeful. I don't know if somebody's got a friend that happens to know Bill Gates, but there you go.

Electricity Canada’s annual symposium, Powering Partnerships is on the horizon!

This event unites members from coast-to-coast-to-coast with CEOs and senior executives, corporate partners, electricity sector stakeholders and elected officials to discuss industry hot topics and learn from keynote speakers. Current Affairs sits down with Vice President of Communications and Sustainability Julia Muggeridge to chat about this year’s approach discussing the future of the electricity sector.

Hi Julia, thank you for joining us. Powering Partnerships is the biggest event of the year for Electricity Canada. What makes this symposium special compared to previous years?

Powering Partnerships was conceptualized five years ago to bring together government stakeholders, corporate partners, and member companies. This event is planned and executed entirely by a small team at Electricity Canada. If you attend Powering Partnerships, you’ll see five years of lessons learned which has evolved into top-notch programming, a beautiful award ceremony and lots of networking opportunities.

How did this year’s theme, “the future of” come to be and what do you think it means for the industry?

Like most good ideas at Electricity Canada, this one started with an article from a colleague! There was an article in the New York Times about Artificial Intelligence, and it noted that, while AI can be frightening, it can also be used for the betterment of humankind. I began thinking about how all of the different futures we reflect on at Electricity Canada are inherently good. They are good because people – who will shape the future – are good. With this optimistic approach, our team has worked to shape an agenda that sees the good in technology, in transportation, in AI but most importantly, in people.

This year you've moved from panels with industry professionals to individual talks by thought leaders. Who is on the guest list and what will they bring?

We are delighted to be welcoming six keynote speakers with a variety of backgrounds to Powering Partnerships. The guest list includes experts in electricity (of course!), technology, transportation, and artificial intelligence. Because the focus of the day is how people interact with future technologies and transportation, we have bookended the day with two keynotes focused on people. Our opening keynote is focused on the North and how we can better collaborate with and think about the people in the north. Our final keynote will bring together the days event and talk about the future of…. People: where do we fit into the future, at work, at home, interacting with technology. But don’t take my word for it- see our full list of speakers here!

The symposium agenda has six interactive keynote presentations: the future of the North, the future of technology, the future of artificial intelligence, the future of transportation, the future of electricity, and the future of people. Do you think we are ready for what comes next?

I’m hoping at the end of the day on November 21^st, we’ll have a clear picture of where people fit into the next 30 – 50 years. But, as you’ve probably noted, I tend to take an optimistic approach to these things.

What is one takeaway you want the audience to leave with after the Symposium?

The future is electric, bright and good.

For more information on Powering Partnerships visit Electricity Canada’s website.

Electricity Distribution in Canada

On September 20-21^st, Electricity Canada’s Distribution Council met in Calgary Alberta for their annual face to face meeting. Distribution Council focuses on the issues surrounding bringing electricity at safe voltage directly to Canadian homes and businesses. As the last stop before electricity end-use, distribution utilities are responsible for connecting and maintaining electricity supply.

Current Affairs sat down with Electricity Canada’s Alex Kent, Director of Director of Distribution and Regulatory Affairs to learn more.

Hi Alex, thanks for joining us. Can you talk a little bit about the functions of a distribution utility and their importance in our net zero future?

The distribution utility owns and operates the wires that bring electricity to your home or business. That’s why they’re called in the industry the “last mile provider”.

Transmission lines take energy from generators to substations of the grid and the distribution grid takes energy from the substations to you. The specific role distribution has in the net zero future is that it supplies the non-emitting or zero emitting electricity that other industrial sectors or sectors at large can decarbonize by switching from a carbon power source to an electrical one. So, an electric vehicle is powered by electricity, and delivered by the distribution grid.

How will electric vehicle adoption affect the grid and its customers?

In the simplest sense, it's going to require the transmission of more energy across the distribution grid, which will, in turn, will be called upon to make up the energy that was being supplied to the transportation sector by gasoline and diesel.

Another interesting impact is that every electric vehicle is also a giant battery, that can consume, store and supply energy. In theory, an electric vehicle plugged into my home when the power goes out because there's a blizzard, could supply electricity to my home so that I never actually lose power. There's a potential emergency reliability angle there.

There is also a possibility for peak shaving. You have low demand for electricity in the day because people are at work or at school doing something else other than running high intensity electrical appliances. The demand for electricity goes up around 5:00 or so when people get home for the day and they turn on their oven, their stove and their microwave. You don’t want everyone in the neighbourhood’s electric vehicles pulling a maximum charge at this time.

Some Electricity Canada members are pursuing or have even deployed ultra-low overnight charging, so in effect you get home from work, plug in your EV, but it doesn't start drawing charge from the electricity grid until midnight, when everything else has been shut off because people have gone to bed. This prevents the system from being overloaded, and this is important to the end customer because it helps them save on their electricity bill.

The past year we produced two reports giving guidance about regulation and building (Back to Bonbright and Build Things Faster). What are the key things regulators and government need to do as we ramp up building grid capacity?

With Back to Bonbright, our core finding was that regulators in one way or another use Bonbright principles for economic regulation. And these are essentially the rules by which the public interest is weighed versus a utilities proposal. What we found was that even given net zero, the fundamental rules on how to assess that something still works, but you must do it. Considering the federal government is the driver of net zero and net zero has cost implications to customers, the federal government in one way or another should support net zero transitions by utilities and those making the investments.

In our Build Things Faster report, we asked, “how can we build things faster” because in the experience of our members it takes five to ten years to get anything really permitted in Canada. If we have eight years to permit our project and build transmission lines, for example, that's going to take us three or four years to build it. Well, that's already 12 years to do all this, and we have already missed the net zero 2035 legal mandate. You can throw more money at the problem; it's just there's not enough time.

What is the biggest upcoming challenge for the distribution system?

In the past, there was very predictable amounts of load that was drawn by users of the distribution system, because nothing really changed. Because we're doing fuel switching, it starts to change very quickly and in unexpected ways. Who's going to buy an EV?
Is it going to happen equally, nicely evenly, across a whole city?

Now, there's almost certainly going to be socioeconomic groups that buy EVs first and they may or may not be concentrated in certain portions of the distribution grid. These portions of the grid would then likely need to be upgraded to capture this increased demand. We don't know what's happening or when things are going to happen. We only have best guesses and need to hope the regulator will approve the necessary work.

What are the big priorities for Distribution Council in 2024?

A focus of discussion has been the impact of electric vehicles on the grid, regulatory innovation and what it means to be customer centric in your operations. Another major topic has been grid resiliency. Extreme weather events keep happening more frequently and they keep getting more extreme. We are looking into what distribution utilities can do to plan for weather that is not like what it was and is getting worse.

Electricity Canada and U.S. Affairs

Many people don’t realize that there are over 31 transmission lines that connect U.S. and Canada, providing electricity to millions of Americans and Canadians. Working together, U.S. - Canada electricity trade and integration delivers a more resilient, clean and affordable system for everyone. Current Affairs sits down with Robin Yee, Manager of U.S. relations to connect the dots—or the transmission lines, as the case may be.

Hi Robin. Over 70 TWh of electricity flows across the U.S. Canada border, which represents a trade relationship of over $3 billion. What are the biggest concerns with US-Canada relations?

The biggest concern with Canada – U.S. relations is that both countries have set really ambitious climate goals and are going through huge energy resource mix transitions.

We've come from this phase where electricity companies had more ability and longer timelines to plan and build and construct as needed, and now we're having to transition and do a lot of changes much more rapidly.

Making sure that the grid remains reliable while we're going through this is a completely different challenge. We are trying to bring together completely new and innovative technologies to work together in ways that we haven't done at this scale and, we're trying to do that while also working towards non-emitting goals. Trying to do those both in parallel is intertwined and complex -that is really the key challenge.

This summer we've been facing real challenges with extreme weather. How have both countries worked together to make the grid more resilient?

Both countries have a long history of working together to keep the grid reliable, and the cross-border relationship is a big part of that. This plays out in different ways.

There's a long history of mutual aid in the case of outages. Crews will cross the border to go and assist neighbors with bringing the lights back on. Another part of it that's built into the system, is simply just having the Internet interconnections between the different regions, it builds resilience. For example, if there is a cold snap in one area or a storm, you have the ability to import energy from another region. This can help meet increased demands or provide alternate supplies rather than having to overbuild in one area. So that's a really interesting compliment between Canada and the United States, that's part of the reason why energy often will flow North and South. It's because we have different things to offer each other and that can be used to strengthen both countries.

There are also forums and groups and councils that work together to make sure that we are looking ahead and preparing for serious incidents or responding together as an industry.

How does our net zero future come into play with U.S. relations?

Well, both countries right now are working towards net zero futures or non-emitting goals and making sure we work together is important. There's new policy being introduced in the States at the federal level and at the State level. We're also seeing policy come up in Canada and regulations related to that and electricity is going to play a huge role, not only for reducing emissions as an industry, but also for supporting other industries and sectors that will need to ship the energy sources they rely on.

Tell us about the North American Electric Reliability Corporation and Electricity Canada’s work with the organization?

NERC or the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, is the regulator for reliability across North America and the integrated electric grid. It is a really impressive and complex organization that develops reliability standards. This needs to be done at a very technical level and it’s informed by industry experience, but it also has to be regulated and enforced in appropriate ways.

Electricity Canada works to support a strong relationship with NERC for our Canadian members and entities, making sure that Canadian perspectives are represented. There has been recent work on, weather issues or issues that are influenced by Canadian geography.

Making sure that there is good representation and co-operation going on in that, we're providing input into the development and direction of policy is important for NERC.

NERC holds one of its Board meetings per year in Canada and the most recent was in Ottawa. There was about 100 people from NERC and across industry and government representation who participate, to talk about what the big challenges are in electricity reliability and how we're working to solve them. It's not easy to find answers, but NERC does a lot of assessments or studies which can be really which can be resources for navigating the transition.

What file are you most looking forward to tackling in your work?

I think really what's most interesting is making sure that the right people are talking to each other because electricity so integrated, it affects so many different aspects of society. You have government, you have policymakers and regulators, you have industry, and you have different needs from the users who are now starting to become part of that. As people generate their own electricity, we’re trying to support the conversations between all these different groups, and I think that’s a really exciting and interesting challenge.

Why is the North American electricity relationship so important?

The electricity relationship is so important because it's the foundation of how we have built our society essentially across North America. And it really does depend on this cooperation across regions, which really leads to a strengthening and resilience and reliability for people who depend on electricity. When electricity was just coming more into society it was very regional and localized. Cooperation between different regions meant that instead of overbuilding in one area, you could work with your neighbor to balance things out and both of you could have the benefits of that. That has continued to be the case and it's by working together that we've been able to have the wonderful benefits of electricity in our society.

New Faces of the Industry award celebrates individuals in the electricity sector

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What better time to start thinking about the future than bright and early into the new year?

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A year in review with Francis Bradley

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Electricity Canada’s annual symposium, Powering Partnerships is on the horizon!

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Electricity Distribution in Canada

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Electricity Canada and U.S. Affairs

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New Faces of the Industry award celebrates individuals in the electricity sector

Other Stories

What better time to start thinking about the future than bright and early into the new year?

Other Stories

A year in review with Francis Bradley

Other Stories

Electricity Canada’s annual symposium, Powering Partnerships is on the horizon!

Other Stories

Electricity Distribution in Canada

Other Stories

Electricity Canada and U.S. Affairs

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