Canada's HVDC network stops short of coast-to-coast

It is estimated that there are over 430,000 kilometres of high voltage transmission lines across Canada. The distance, enough to cross the entire country 85 times over, is brought in part by High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) lines that span across the provinces, from hydro, to nuclear, to gas-powered electricity that keeps things moving in Canada. But despite 10 key HVDC lines running through provinces and even in shared contracts with certain U.S. states, Canada has no cross-country project.

Michael Barnard, Editor of The Future is Electric blog and Chief Strategist with TFIE Strategy, said that, as Canada has already developed an established alternating current grid among the provinces that regulate their respective energy sectors, it's difficult to integrate newer direct current technologies developed in recent decades. 

"HVDC only became technically viable for longer haul transmission around 2012. ABB developed a hybrid breaker, and we obtained variable-source commutation instead of the [Local Control Cabinet] (LCC) predecessor,' said Barnard. "HVDC enables us to share electricity with a short connector, and that's what LCC was used for in Japan and here, but we didn't do a lot of long HVDC lines, because when we were building transmission, it wasn't fit for purpose. Now it's fit for purpose."

North America's power system is primarily organised into two major synchronous grids (Eastern and Western) and three smaller ones (Texas, Quebec, and Alaska). This divide ensures reliable electricity distribution across the continent - connecting local utilities to facilitate energy sharing and maintain a stable frequency.

One of Canada's most extensive lines is the Nelson River system in Manitoba, which consists of three bipoles across the region. The first, which spans 895 kilometres along the Nelson River from Northern Manitoba through the wilderness to just outside Winnipeg in the south, was one of the largest at the time of its commissioning in 1966.

The Maritime Link, a 170-kilometre-long, 500MW project spanning Muskrat Falls in Labrador, through Newfoundland, to Nova Scotia, was completed in late 2017, with the capacity to supply 20 per cent of ​Nova Scotia's total electricity. This project physically connected the island of Newfoundland to the North American electrical grid for the first time

Claudio Canizares, Executive Director of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy, said the recent increase in load demand, driven by growing data centres and industrial needs, is a province-by-province issue.

"I think each province will have to deal with their own need for power. How do they supply the power with all of them dealing with the same problem? That's a challenge," said Canizares.

On March 4, the Ontario government announced an interprovincial partnership to build a national energy corridor, signed by all 10 provinces. "With the backdrop of global uncertainty, Ontario is emerging as a reliable partner at home and abroad focused on protecting jobs and our economy," said Stephen Lecce, Minister of Energy and Mines.

Provincial regulators have been attempting to avoid grid failures for over a decade.

In 2010, the Ontario government introduced the Industrial Conservation Initiative (ICI) to incentivise large electricity consumers to shift their consumption to off-peak hours. In other words, if industrial consumers like data centres shifted to optimal times, they would have the option to earn credit based on Global Adjustment rates for the top five peak-demand hours each year, rather than on a volumetric basis.

While the program started with a threshold of five megawatts per consumer, it was reduced to three megawatts in 2015 and to one megawatt in 2017, in an effort to get more people off the grid as the system approaches overload-risk times.

Canada Energy Regulator's Canada's Energy Future 2026 report estimates that the country's electricity capacity will increase from around 160 GW in 2023 to 310 GW in 2050 under the industry's current format. Wind energy generation will triple over the next quarter-century, thanks to hydrogen produced via electrolysis for use in that section of production.

Natural gas generation without carbon capture, utilisation, and storage declines significantly across all scenarios in the report. In 2023, this accounted for 18 per cent of capacity, and nearly 16 per cent of generation. By 2050, unabated natural gas generation will account for 11 per cent of capacity under current measures, but only about 3 per cent of generation when used sparingly.

Barnard said lines work best when the joint government parties share similar energy philosophies, but much of the country is characterised by fragmented energy grids and differing regulations and market strategies. For example, Alberta and Ontario's electricity market is deregulated, and prices can change in real time in response to market dynamics. He pointed to some cross-province HVDC projects that aren't living up to their full potential, citing differences in energy production as an issue.

"We've got a new 1000-kilometre [line] in Northern B.C. and Alberta for electricity sharing. But even there, it's underutilised, and that's in part due to the problem that any electricity we import here into B.C. from Alberta is filthy electricity. Alberta has the second-highest carbon intensity of electricity of the provinces."

As of 2021, Alberta, the third-largest energy producer in the country, was generating 85 per cent of its electricity from fossil fuels. B.C., in comparison, gets 89 per cent of its power from hydro and is a net exporter of energy. 

Canizares said there is a stronger economy within the province, or adjacent to it, under the Canadian energy model.

"Mostly there's no Canadian vision of a power sharing. The markets basically make it attractive to share power north-south instead of east-west," he said. "Quebec and Ontario talked about interconnection for years. It didn't happen because Quebec was interested in selling the power to the U.S., because they offer a better pick, until they didn't... So it's more of a marketing issue, I believe."

The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) represents 40 electricity transmission system operators from 36 countries across Europe, ensuring the secure, reliable, and efficient operation of the interconnected pan-European power system. 

"We in Canada don't even have the ENTSO-E equivalent. There is no requirement, forum, or organisation that aggregates provincial power demands into a national perspective. In the United States, the states all go it alone. But they're trying to do something like it in the New England area," added Barnard. "But we in Canada haven't even started that first level of better governance."

He suggests a cross-country grid could help provinces generate power more cheaply during off-peak hours for those already in the midst of peak hours.

"Electricity generated mid-afternoon in Ontario, when it's a low requirement can flow to the Maritimes for their evening. Electricity generated in British Columbia at 3 p.m. hits the 6 p.m. demand high in Ontario," said Barnard. "That enables us to generate electrons anywhere in the country, and if we had a an HVDC grid across the country, we could move electrons to where they're needed."