The federal government is injecting C$500 million into Canada’s multi-billion-dollar clean electricity program, focusing on projects that enhance grid capacity and reliability.
Announced in early October, the new funding for the $4.5-billion Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathways (SREPs) program will flow through Canada’s Utility Support Stream, which is accepting proposals for projects that improve grid assets and reliability, integrate renewables, generate economic and social benefits, and help meet rising demand for clean, affordable electricity, says Natural Resources Canada (NRCan).
The rising demand is partly driven by new data centres, most of them located in Ontario, says S&P Global. That sudden shift is putting pressure on Canadian utilities as they prepare to meet future electricity needs.
SREPs was launched in 2021 and is currently scheduled to end in 2036. So far, the program has supported 72 deployment projects to increase the number of clean energy installations and bring new renewable resources online, including wind, solar photovoltaics, energy storage, and grid modernization, among others. Some funding went toward supporting the Bekevar Wind Farm in Saskatchewan, for example.
The program has also funded 72 capacity projects in Canada, six of them national. Provincial projects include one in Ontario that supports deployment of community distributed energy resources solutions for Taykwa Tagamou Nation and Oneida Nation of the Thames, and another that provided funding to the Nunavut Economic Developers Association to host the Nunavut All-of-Government Energy Forum in January, 2023.
The new funding will allow Canada to support more projects in partnership with provinces, territories, Indigenous governments and non-governmental partners, all working toward an efficient, money-saving, clean grid, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in a release.
SREPs has only one deployment project and three capacity projects in Nunavut, but 35 deployment projects and 14 capacity projects in Alberta, which installed around four times greater capacity through the program than any other province or territory. Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Manitoba each have one or two capacity projects, and no deployment projects. No projects are located in the Yukon or Northwest Territories.
NRCan says 61% of all approved deployment projects have Indigenous ownership.
SREPs works with the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) to support clean electricity projects eligible for both SREPs funding and CIB financing.
