Ontario is preparing to expand gas-fired power supply in an effort to address the province’s growing demand for electricity.
The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), the Crown corporation responsible for operating Ontario’s electricity market, said gas-fired plants are needed to make up for the power shortage left by the retirement of a nuclear power plant in Pickering, and other nuclear-generating units that are being refurbished or whose contracts are expiring.
“It’s really important to have natural gas as an insurance policy to be there to keep the lights on and provide the reliability that we need,” Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith told CBC News. “We need to have natural gas for the short term, especially to get us through these refurbishments.”
This is expected to be Ontario’s largest addition of gas supply in over a decade, after the previous Liberal government scrapped two major gas plants in 2013, one in Mississauga and another in Oakville, at a cost of around $1 billion.
Ontario’s gas plants have increased electricity production in recent years. In 2017, gas and oil-powered electricity amounted to just a low of 4 percent of total annual energy output in the province, but that proportion has gradually risen to 10 percent of total supply by 2022, according to IESO data. In 2022, Ontario’s electricity demand grew by 2.8 percent, rising to 137.5 terawatt hours, which partially reflects the economic rebound after the COVID-19 pandemic, IESO said.
This trend of demand and supply of gas-fired power, however, runs against the federal Liberal government’s goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2035. To achieve its emissions reduction goal, the government proposed plans that include phasing out fossil-fuel-powered electricity. The government further seeks to achieve economy-wide net-zero emissions by 2050.
However, IESO has concluded that without additional gas-fired capacity, it would be impossible to meet the province’s electricity needs in the coming years. In an October 2021 report, IESO said a complete phase-out of natural gas generation by 2030 would lead to blackouts, and the system changes would also lead to an increase in residential electricity bills by 60 percent.
The report also said that attaining a decarbonized electricity sector by 2050 would require an electricity system that is more than double the size it is today at an estimated cost of around $400 billion.
