Draft for the Hill Times
May 18, 2025
Globally renewable energy sources, particularly solar and wind, have been experiencing a period of unprecedented growth. The dramatic expansion of investment and development of renewable energy sources has been the product of a convergence of multiple factors.
The need to decarbonize energy systems, dramatic declines in costs and ongoing improvements in performance, and the growing capacity to manage output of renewable energy sources have all contributed to this growth. In the result, renewables have emerged as the dominant source of new electricity generation capacity being added to grids globally,
Unfortunately, while the global story around renewables has been one of consistent acceleration, the situation in Canada has been much less promising.
In Canada, the defining feature of renewable energy development has been profound instability. Over the past two decades, activity in the sector has alternated between periods of rapid growth and screeching halts.
The best example of this pattern has been Ontario, The province led renewable energy development between 2006 and 2018, adding 8000MW of new renewable capacity to its electricity systems. The pace of development began to slow from 2014 onwards under the Liberal Wynne government. It was then brought to a complete halt by the arrival of Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in June 2018.
After a nearly seven-year hiatus, Ontario eventually reopened the door to renewables development. Then it partially reversed itself. That added to the cloud of uncertainty around renewables, reinforced by the expanding role of gas-fired generation, and plans for a massive nuclear construction program.
When development in Ontario slowed down, Alberta emerged as the Canadian focal point for renewables development. That promising trajectory was meet with a sudden moratorium in August 2023. Alberta United Conservative Party (UCP) Premier Danielle Smith’s actions seemed propelled by a combination of a desire to make a statement against Ottawa’s proposed Clean Electricity Regulations, and the need to play to the rural UCP base. The rules that followed the end of the moratorium seemed designed to hamper further renewable energy development.
Nova Scotia, for its part, also made a strong initial start, but then pulled back from its community-oriented COMFIT program. Quebec appears, for now, to be positioned as the renewable energy development leader, matching wind resources with massive hydroelectric storage capacity.
The instability for the renewables sector has been the result of multiple factors: unexpected local opposition; changes in government; and established utilities with deep connections to incumbent technologies and actors. The situation has made the development of supply chains and manufacturing, development and service capacities extremely challenging,
The scale of Canada’s wind and solar resources is almost unlimited in energy terms. The challenges of intermittency can be overcome by improved grid management, the geographic distribution of assets and, most importantly, the rapid technological developments taking place in the field of energy storage. There, major improvements in performance across a range of technologies have been matched by dramatic reductions in costs.
Local opposition in rural areas has been a key factor in the policy reversals seen around renewables in Ontario and Alberta. In Ontario, the Wynne government’s emphasis on community engagement and participation in renewables development showed strong potential to overcome these challenges. In theory, a similar approach informs the province’s current procurement, although the final outcomes remain to be seen.
Decarbonization will require the expansion of non-fossil fuel-fired electricity supplies. But if electricity costs rise so much that industrial, commercial and residential consumers pull back from electrification, the effort to move in the direction of net zero, essential to meeting the climate challenge, will fail. The track record of large, centralized generation technologies, like major new hydro projects and nuclear energy in Canada, and around the world, cannot inspire confidence in this regard.
Decarbonization strategies need to maximize energy productivity and efficiency first, while controlling energy costs. Renewables, in combination with energy storage, demand response, the optimization of provincial interconnections, and the development of distributed energy resources (DERs), offer best option for achieving these outcomes.
Mark Winfield is a Professor Environmental and Urban Change, and Co-Chair of the Sustainable Energy Initiative at York Universtiy
He is co-editor of Sustainable Energy Transitions in Canada (UBC Press 2023)