Federal Government Launches Consultation on Clean Electricity Standard
On March 15, 2022, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the Hon. Steven Guilbeault, launched consultations to develop a Clean Electricity Standard (CES) as part of Canada’s commitment to achieving a net-zero electricity grid by 2035.
The consultations are being driven by ECCC’s recently released discussion paper, A Clean Electricity Standard in Support of a Net-Zero Electricity Sector.
According to the paper, the purpose of the consultation is “to send a clear signal that the Government of Canada intends to move forward with regulations to achieve a net-zero electricity system by 2035.”
“While carbon pricing is a foundational measure in Canada’s overall approach to reducing GHG emissions,” the paper states, “it is designed to incent the lowest cost reductions across the economy and does not guarantee emission reductions in specific and targeted sectors. Given the long lifespan of electricity generation assets, decisions made over the next few years will impact Canada’s GHG emissions for decades. Therefore, carbon pricing alone is not sufficient to ensure that the electricity sector achieves net-zero emissions by 2035, or likely even by 2050.”
“A Canada-wide CES will complement carbon pricing by requiring the phase-out of all conventional fossil fuel electricity generation. In tandem, carbon pricing will incent fuel switching in other sectors to drive increased demand for clean electricity.”
Once implemented, the new regulations would fall under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and set emissions performance standards for electricity generators “to ensure that the electricity sector transitions” to net-zero by 2035.
While the “final form of the CES’ scope and design will be influenced by consideration of the full set of changes required” to make the transition to net-zero, “compliance flexibilities,” particularly for “essential uses of natural gas,” will be considered in the implementation of the CES to ensure a smooth transition.
The discussion paper contains 22 questions to guide the government’s development of a Clean Electricity Standard. These pertain to compliance flexibilities, alignment with carbon pricing, treatment of natural gas generation, treatment of industry, private generation, and remote generation, treatment of biomass, and a set of more general questions.
Members can submit comments on the Clean Electricity Standard discussion paper by April 15, 2022.
For more information, contact Stephen Chartrand at 1-800-267-2231 ext. 276, or email schartrand@hrai.ca.
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