Utility companies and governments need to start building infrastructure now to meet the massive increase in electricity demand from the “green” energy transition – but Canada is short of skilled workers to do the job.

Private and government-owned utilities are already turning down requests to provide more power from their electrical grids because there’s not enough power available, electricity sector experts said during a Transition Accelerator webinar focused on providing abundant and affordable clean electricity as the energy transition accelerates.

“[Electricity] demand forecasts are growing extraordinarily quickly. There’s not enough power to go around,” said webinar moderator Philippe Dunsky (photo at right), founder and president of Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors, which has offices in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

Dunsky also chaired the federal government’s Electricity Advisory Council, which produced a final report in December 2024.

Demand is being driven by things like data centres for AI development, an increase in manufacturing in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, more electric vehicles, electrified home and commercial heating, and electricity for industrial uses, he said.

At the same time, Canadians are experiencing “climate fatigue,” or a decline in concern about climate change, replaced by worries about household affordability after years of high inflation.

Utilities are concerned about reliability given the pressures on existing electricity systems. Plus there are broader societal and political concerns around energy security.

The [energy] transition is definitely on. It’s really critical for Canada to emerge on the other side of it as leaders, not as followers,” Dunsky said. That means choosing a path in the transition, “not having it imposed on us.”

To achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Canada will need to more than double its current electricity production, with some studies suggesting a need for a two- to three-fold increase in electricity generation capacity.

Yet Canada’s electricity system is aging, so now is the time to make upgrades and start expanding generation, transmission and delivery networks, said consulting engineer Tim Eckel (photo at right), former vice-president of energy transition and asset management at SaskPower.

“There will never be a cheaper time to build than now,” he said. “Costs are going up and as everybody starts chasing the same resources, which are going to be limited, the prices will just escalate.”

But building isn’t just about expansion, because existing electricity systems also need to be upgraded to make them “smart,” including with sensors and smart devices, Eckel said. These systems also need to be made more resilient to climate change impacts, including ice loading, wildfires and floods.

There will be a “small” premium on the cost of making electricity systems smart, more resilient and capable of handling increasing power loads, he said. “But it’s a lot less costly than having to go back and replace them later.”

Things like automated metering infrastructure, centralized distributed control and advanced business management systems are no longer optional, Eckel noted. “These are now requirements to operate the system. You need them to actually make the system work.”

Utility companies need to shift from monitoring their systems to controlling them to automating them, he said.

“We can’t just jump into automation, because it’ll be chaos. You have to understand how the system works before you can start to automate it . . . and once you get the foundations in place, the other benefits will come,” he said.

Current shortage of skilled workers is projected to grow

However, upgrading and expanding electricity systems will be a challenge given there is already a shortage of skilled workers in the sector, Eckel said.

“I think a lot of utilities are struggling to spend their budgets, just to get things in place,” he said.

A 2024 report by the Future Skills Centre and the Conference Board of Canada estimated that skills shortages account for a seven-percent gap in productivity between Canada and the U.S. since 2018. If Canada had adequately addressed its skill shortages, GDP would be an estimated $49 billion higher today.

In the electricity sector specifically, a report by Electricity Human Resources Canada found that close to 28,000 new employees will be needed by 2028, equivalent to 25 percent of the current labour force – 57 percent to replace retiring employees and 44 percent to meet expansion demand.

Nearly half of the sector’s 34 core occupations will face labour shortages at the economy-wide level, according to the report.

Along with a shortage of skilled workers, Canada is currently reliant on other countries for the equipment and other components in the supply chain required to build electricity systems, Eckel said. “We’re going to have to look at how do we bring some of that back to Canada.”

Shifting to electricity and away from fossil fuels is expected to result in tens of billions of dollars annually in lower energy costs for nearly all households in Canada by 2050, according to a Transition Accelerator report.

The Transition Accelerator is a pan-Canadian organization that works with others to identify and advance viable pathways to a prosperous, competitive and net-zero emissions Canada in 2050.

Despite projected increasing electricity rates, “electrification can actually improve energy affordability in the case of most Canadian households under even our highest [electricity] rate trajectories,” said Moe Kabbara (photo at left), executive vice-president of the Transition Accelerator.

The savings will be there because electricity is energy efficient and costs less than fossil fuels for the energy required, he said.

“The idea is that energy efficiency translates to reduced operational costs, even if electricity costs [rise] over the next 25 years to basically support the buildout of that grid and this electricity system from a generation, transmission and distribution side.”

 Even under the high electricity rate scenario, 52 percent of Canadians are expected to be paying less for their household energy costs under electrification by 2050, the Transition Accelerator’s analysis showed.

The net annual pan-Canadian savings in 2050 is expected to range from $1.9 billion to $20.6 billion.

The exceptions will be two provinces – Alberta and Saskatchewan – because they currently rely on heating with low-cost natural gas and electricity costs may be particularly high in a net-zero future.

“The majority of households in these provinces face worsening energy wallets in the absence of mitigating policies and supports under all rate scenarios, making policy interventions critical to ensuring energy affordability does not erode,” the report said.

The savings scenario depends on Canada leaning into electrification to bring down costs and improve the performance of electrification technologies through scale, while growing the electricity grid in line with the country’s net-zero goals and managing costs for those most at risk of price increases, according to the report.

“We’re not really going to stumble on [the future we want] by accident,” Kabbara said. “We really need to make sure we’re building smart and effectively in terms of how we’re deploying technologies.” 

Toronto Hydro is helping customers electrify heat, hot water and transportation

Toronto Hydro, a publicly owned (the sole owner is the City of Toronto) electricity distribution company, has spent decades investing in its electricity system and “is ready now for electrification,” said Julia McNally (photo at left), director, climate action at Toronto Hydro.

Toronto Hydro has the capacity in its system, the knowledge and commitment, and an energy transition investment plan, she said. “We have investments for expanding our grid, making it smarter as well as sustaining what we have.”

Toronto Hydro is planning investments in reclosers (automated, high-voltage switches that detect temporary faults and then automatically restore power), sensors and other smart devices to build more intelligence and flexibility into its system, McNally said.

The company also is expanding its electricity demand-response program to leverage the demand side and optimize the system to keep costs down, she added.

Toronto Hydro also is working on mapping load capacity across the city of Toronto that shows the easiest, cheapest access points to the electricity grid. The company also has hosting-capacity maps indicating where new generation can be most efficiently added to the grid.

McNally said a lot of the work Toronto Hydro is doing now with customers is helping them electrify heat, hot water and transportation because that’s what produces greenhouse gas emissions in Toronto.

“We need our customers to make those two or three capital investments to stop combusting fossil fuels in their buildings and vehicles,” she said. “If you want to get emissions down, you’ve got to fuel switch [from fossil fuels to electricity].”

Dunsky pointed out that recent polling shows Canadians’ concerns about climate change have dropped in the last few years from being their No. 1 or No. 2 concerns to No. 7 or 8 or lower.

“Climate is not top of mind for many consumers now and it’s probably not going to be driving their decisions to a large degree,” he said.

McNally agreed that voluntary participation in switching from fossil fuels to electricity isn’t going to be sufficient to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

“We’re not going to change this unless we all start paying for the pollution. And you can’t do that on a voluntary basis,” she said.

“If we want to solve this problem [and do it at scale], we need mandatory economy-wide policies that put a price on carbon. That doesn’t mean we need a carbon tax,” McNally said.

Complicating any national policy approach, however, is that Alberta and Saskatchewan oppose the federal government’s Clean Electricity Regulations, calling them unconstitutional, unaffordable and unachievable.

Webinar panelists said another thing Canadian provinces could do to speed up the clean energy transition is expand east-west electricity connections and integrate provincial systems, rather than mainly focusing on selling surplus power to the U.S.

Eckel said despite the current fight over U.S. tariffs, there will continue to be benefits of having an integrated U.S.-Canada electricity grid.

As the power load grows in Canada, provinces that currently have surplus electricity such as B.C., Manitoba and Quebec are starting to redirect some power that would have been exported to meet domestic demand, he said.

There are huge benefits of expanding east-west power flows in Western Canada and Atlantic Canada, Eckel said.

For example, B.C. has plentiful hydroelectric power that could be integrated with solar and wind power in Alberta and Saskatchewan and help those two provinces make a quicker shift away from fossil fuels.

“I think provinces have to get over [this idea of] being self-sufficient [in electricity],” Eckel said. “That’s probably the most expensive, least reliable and highest-risk approach to take now.”

“You have to start relying on your partners, your neighbours, because we’re probably not going to be able to build [new electricity infrastructure] fast enough.”

See also: Ottawa will invest in expanding interprovincial electricity grid but only if provinces are interested

Electricity-driven transition to net zero requires collaboration by all levels of government

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