Manitoba plans to use wind power to double or triple energy-generating capacity over next 2 decades - CBC.ca
Manitoba plans to use wind power to double or triple energy-generating capacity over next 2 decades | CBC News
Manitoba
Manitoba plans to use wind power to double or triple energy-generating capacity over next 2 decades
Future hydro-electric dams likely too costly, despite growing demand for electricity
Manitoba says it needs to double or triple its electricity-generating capacity over the next two decades — and it won't build new hydroelectric dams to meet that goal.
The province plans to rely on wind farms in order to boost generating capacity from 6,600 megawatts right now to somewhere between 10,000 and 16,000 megawatts by the 2040s, according to a new energy policy announced on Friday.
A growing demand for cleaner energy has increased demand for hydroelectric power and that demand is set to rise as more companies phase out natural gas and petroleum products, Manitoba Hydro board chair Edward Kennedy said outside the Crown corporation's downtown Winnipeg headquarters.
This will force Hydro to increase its generating capacity and save more power. On the generation front, Hydro expects to rely primarily on wind power, likely by purchasing from private companies and then selling it to consumers and industrial customers.
The high cost of Hydro's most recently completed generating station, Keeyask on the Nelson River, makes future investments in dams highly unlikely, Kennedy said.
On the savings front, Hydro said it will explore the use of battery storage to even out the high winter demand for power with the lower summer demands.
Kennedy said Hydro may also utilize "smart meters" that could charge consumers lower rates for power during off-peak hours. However, there is no timeline for the rollout of these devices.
The province's new energy strategy also calls for the careful selection of new industrial developments that use electricity, with preference given to those that provide the greatest economic benefit as well as the lowest environmental impact.
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.