In February, the United States did something it hadn’t done in many years: The country sent more electricity to Canada than it received from its northern neighbor. Then, in March, U.S. electricity exports to Canada climbed again, reaching their highest level since at least 2010.
The growing flow of energy northward is part of a worrying trend for North America: energy demand is growing robustly everywhere, but electricity supply – in the case of Canada, from giant hydroelectric dams – and the capacity to get energy to where it is needed are weak. increasingly under pressure.
Many energy experts say Canada’s hydroelectric plants, which have had to reduce electricity production due to a recent drop in precipitation and snow, will eventually rebound. But some industry executives worry that climate change, which has already been linked to Canada’s explosive wildfires last year, could make it harder to predict when rain and snow will fall. will return to normal.
“We all need to be humble in the face of more extreme weather,” said Chris O’Riley, president and CEO of the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, which operates hydroelectric dams in western Canada. “We deal with the ups and downs of water from year to year, and when we have lows like we do, lower levels, it’s common for us to import electricity, and we plan to continue that this year. year.”
The United States and Canada have long depended on each other because electricity consumption tends to peak north of the border during the winter, when Canadians use electric heaters, and consumption electricity in the United States peaks in summer, during the air conditioning season.
Canada’s abundant hydroelectric power is a cornerstone of commerce, providing relatively low-cost renewable energy to California, Oregon, Washington, New York and New England.
But the energy supply and demand equation is changing. Electricity demand in many states increased sharply in both summer and winter. Some experts predict that winter demand for electricity in the United States could eclipse summer demand by 2050.
At the same time, utilities are increasingly reliant on intermittent resources like solar and wind power. Large hydroelectric plants, once considered a stable source of electricity, have struggled with low reservoirs in California, around Hoover Dam and recently in Canada.
“We’re facing real weather changes and we’re learning in real time how it’s going to affect hydropower operations, pretty much across North America,” said Robert McCullough of McCullough Research, a Portland, Oregon-based company. who has been a consultant to corporate clients of Canadian utilities since the 1980s.
Additionally, electricity consumption is expected to increase as people and businesses turn to electric heat pumps, cars and industrial equipment to replace appliances burning oil, natural gas and coal. Demand is also increasing due to data centers.
One solution is to build more power lines, something the Biden administration and some states are working on. But energy experts say the United States should also increase more such connections with Canada. This would allow, for example, California’s solar farms to supply Canada when its dams don’t have enough water and Canadian utilities to send more electricity south when they have plenty.
“Most models suggest that a more interconnected grid is a better grid,” said Shelley Welton, a distinguished professor at the University of Pennsylvania who helped write a recent report on grid reliability and governance electric. “I think it’s possible to be interconnected across North America. We need scenario planning. We need long-term planning.
Located among the pines and spruce trees of northern Quebec, the Robert-Bourassa hydroelectric dam represents the promises and challenges inherent in the control of renewable energies.
The plant’s operator, Hydro-Québec, a utility owned by the Canadian province, built the power plant on a bank of the La Grande River as part of a network of plants that can produce more than twice as much electricity than the largest American power plant. Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in Washington State.
The La Grande complex allowed Hydro-Québec to become a major supplier to New York State and New England. But the lower-than-normal amount of snow has forced Hydro-Quebec and other Canadian utilities to import more electricity from the United States in recent months.
“It appears conditions are abnormally dry,” said Gilbert Bennett, president of Water Power Canada, a non-profit organization that represents the hydroelectric industry. “Variations from year to year become significant. »
Hydro-Québec executives say they expect the dry spell to end soon, citing similar periods in 2004 and 2014. Models predict an increase in precipitation of 6 to 8 percent for eastern Canada in over the next 25 years, the company said.
Serge Abergel, chief operating officer of Hydro-Québec Energy Services, said Canada’s increased dependence on the United States is a temporary way for hydroelectric plants to save their water. He added that as the two countries modernize and expand their grids with more renewable and efficient resources, they will be able to complement each other.
“The transition also creates opportunities,” said Mr. Abergel during a recent visit to the Robert-Bourassa dam. “You optimize those resources.”
In general, the United States would prefer to import more electricity from Canada because it is much cheaper. Hydro-Québec residential customers pay about $50 for 1,000 kilowatt hours of energy, Abergel said, compared to $236 in New York state and an average of $276 in New England.
The company’s costs are low because its hydroelectric plants have been built and paid for a long time ago. But getting this affordable energy south is expensive: Canadian hydropower costs Massachusetts homeowners twice as much as Quebec residents, according to an analysis by McCullough Research.
Hydro-Québec is building more power lines. It is participating in a project, the Champlain Hudson Power Express, which is expected to be completed by mid-2026. The $6 billion, approximately 339-mile transmission line will connect a substation in La Prairie, near Montreal, to a converter station in Astoria, Queens. The line will be able to provide enough energy to serve more than a million homes in New York.
“If you want a quick transition, you need more transmission,” Mr. Abergel said. But “we are not encouraging anyone to propose solutions,” he added. “We do things piecemeal.”
Mr. Abergel said Hydro-Quebec will meet all its obligations to New York and other states despite the drought because it can conserve water by reducing the amount of electricity produced by its hydropower and importing more United States energy. This way, the company will always have enough water to export electricity when energy demand is higher in New York and New England.
But some energy experts are not so optimistic. Mr. McCullough, the consultant, said he feared that global warming could strain reservoirs to the point where it would no longer be possible for Canadian utilities to keep enough water in reserve to get through a very long period of drought.
“Every time we have one of these episodes,” Mr. McCullough said, “it’s a shock moment.”
The mutual dependence of utilities in the United States and Canada is clearly visible in Oregon. Portland General Electric, a utility serving about two million residents in the state, tracks water flows and snowpack in British Columbia from an operations center near Portland.
When drought and wildfires threaten areas around the Columbia River, hydroelectric plants and transmission lines that connect Canada, Washington, Oregon and California become vulnerable.
“What we’re really concerned about right now is that the snowpack is low in Canada,” said Darrington Outama, senior director of electrical operations at Portland General Electric. “What we’re focused on as a region is how they’re doing there.”
In addition to importing electricity from British Columbia, PGE gets its electricity from two small hydroelectric plants located in the Bull Run watershed, east of Portland.
The Bull Run Rainforest in Oregon does not receive water from the Columbia River. But a serious wildfire like last summer could force officials to close those dams and stop drawing water from Bull Run. If that happened, Portland would have to rely on groundwater, which could in turn affect the Columbia River and related hydroelectric dams.
“We have to think about all scenarios,” Kristin Anderson, water resources program manager for the Portland Water Bureau, said during a tour of Bull Run. “We saw more rapid changes in weather timings. We prepare throughout the season to be ready for anything.
Hydroelectric plants are often the lowest priority when it comes to water use. As a result, wildfires, low snowpack and drought can cause significant reductions in their production. If electricity demand is high at the same time, regional energy networks could collapse.
“There were these historic patterns of electricity distribution from north to south,” said Mr. O’Riley of British Columbia Hydro. “All these patterns have been disrupted. Power flows in all directions.
In addition, California, which has suffered from severe drought in recent years, has recently been flooded. Blizzards, atmospheric rivers and other storms covered the state’s mountains with snow and filled reservoirs, allowing its dams to produce lots of electricity.
The state also recently installed numerous large batteries that allow utilities to use abundant solar energy for hours after sunset.
California’s energy wealth should be a boon to British Columbia, Oregon and Washington, but energy officials say there aren’t enough transmission lines to transport all this excess electricity north to where it is needed.