Manitoba Promotes East-West Power Grid

 May 19, 2017

Manitoba’s minister of growth, enterprise and trade, Cliff Cullen, is keen to promote east-west power transmission, with federal government help, according to a recent news report.

The report says Cullen told delegates at the Energy Council of Canada’s western conference that Manitoba is ready to share clean energy with its neighbours as new hydro generation projects come online. “We’ve been focused on transmission… north and south, and we haven’t had that dialogue about east-west,” he said. Most hydro-producing provinces export surplus power to the United States.

Saskatchewan Energy Minister Dustin Duncan said his province could be interested. Saskatchewan relies heavily on coal-fired electricity plants. However, he expressed concern about the costs. “They’re big projects. They’re multibillion-dollar projects… Even trying to do the interconnects to the transmission grid, I don’t think they’re as easy or as maybe low cost as we would just imagine, just hooking up some power lines across the border. It takes much more work than that.”

Cullen acknowledged that the provinces would have to discuss how interconnectivity would work. “Hopefully the federal government will be at the table to have a look at that, because it’s a fundamental expense, a capital expense, to connect our provinces.”

Manitoba, Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador are the most vocal proponents of east-west transmission.

Read the full article: http://leaderpost.com/news/saskatchewan/manitoba-talks-east-west-power-grid-says-it-has-clean-energy-to-help-neighbours

Photo courtesy of Unsplash on Pixabay.