The good news about net zero

The good news for Canadians is:

• Canada has the advantage of having one of the cleanest electricity grids in the world – less than 20 per cent of our power comes from fossil fuels.

• Since 2014, Canada has implemented performance standards on natural gas-fired electricity generation, moved to phase out coal generation by 2030, developed carbon pricing and offered incentives for a number of emerging non-emitting technologies.

• Electricity Canada members have unveiled a variety of net zero commitments over the past year. In some cases, electricity companies offered targets that far exceeded the government’s Net Zero by 2050 goals.

The “net” in net zero is important. While we are continuing to make significant progress in reducing emissions in the electricity sector, being able to "net out" hard-to-abate emissions can help to ensure that we continue to offer clean, affordable, and reliable electricity during this monumental transition. This is important, because there are regions in Canada that rely on fossil fuels for much of, or nearly all of, their dispatchable, on-demand generation. And there are remote communities that aren’t connected to the grid, that will continue to use some form of carbonemitting generation.

Consequently, the path to a net-zero grid will be an “all of the above” approach. It won’t be one technology or the other, it will be all of them. We need to lean on all available options to achieve this goal, including more renewables, traditional hydro, small modular reactors, carbon capture and energy storage and transmission.