Road to Resilience: Energy Solutions

The Road to Resilience was released by the Climate Action Team in February 2021. It established the pathway to a fossil fuel free, climate resilient future for Manitoba.

We are now presenting Road to Resilience: Energy Solutions. This study focuses on quantifying the energy essentials of the pathway:

• How to heat all our buildings without natural gas
• How to fuel all our vehicles without gasoline or diesel

In this section, we review the five recommended action areas required to achieve those objectives:

1. Stop exporting electricity – Return exported electricity to use in Manitoba as contracts expire
2. Deep retrofits – Perform deep retrofits on existing buildings. Improve the building envelop (insulation & air barrier) connect to district geothermal systems
3. Solar power – Increase solar generation
4. Wind power – Increase commercial wind power
5. Energy Storage – Establish new Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) capacity

The Challenge

In order to heat our buildings and move all vehicles electrically, Manitoba Hydro estimated (in 2018) that we need this:

So, we need almost 200% more power and about twice the energy supply.

And it can be done without experimental technologies, new dams, or nuclear. In fact, our proposal exceeds the target by 30% or more.

The Findings

The Climate Action Team study confirms that the objective can be met using economically viable, low carbon technology that already exists, without building additional hydro dams or nuclear power plants. The study also demonstrates how this transition can

• improve Manitoba Hydro’s finances
• grow Manitoba’s economy
• create thousands of additional jobs without requiring large government investments

OUR ANALYSIS DOES SHOW THAT IT IS POSSIBLE to heat all our buildings without natural gas AND to fuel all our vehicles without gasoline or diesel.

REMEMBER – This is one scenario that produces the result that we need. The fact that our result is 30% to 50% above target gives us some flexibility. If we exceed the power and energy targets in one area it will help to make up for shortcomings in other areas.

Also, we can reduce the transportation energy requirement by moving away from dependence on vehicle transportation. Moving more people by public transit or by active transportation reduces the need for transportation electricity. Also, city planning and densification can shorten travel distances and reduce the need for vehicle transportation.

A summary of the estimated power and energy gains for each action area can be found in the table below.

NOTE: Additional analysis is needed to model daily, weekly, and seasonal swings in energy supply and demand during the winter months. This analysis should take into account all likely scenarios with respect to climate variations, population growth, and other major influences on supply and demand.

Find data and analysis for each of the five energy solutions below.

ENERGY SOLUTIONS