2 days Ago By Brandon Sun
On Monday afternoon, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew signed orders-in-council that direct Manitoba Hydro to not renew two contracts with Northern States Power, an American utility, for the sale of 500 megawatts of power. The two contracts expire next month. Read this article for free: Already have an account? As we navigate through unprecedented times, our journalists are working harder than ever to bring you the latest local updates to keep you safe and informed.
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99 a X percent off the regular rate. On Monday afternoon, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew signed orders-in-council that direct Manitoba Hydro to not renew two contracts with Northern States Power, an American utility, for the sale of 500 megawatts of power. The two contracts expire next month.
Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? Opinion On Monday afternoon, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew signed orders-in-council that direct Manitoba Hydro to not renew two contracts with Northern States Power, an American utility, for the sale of 500 megawatts of power. The two contracts expire next month. Instead of shipping that electricity to the south, Kinew says that 50 megawatts will be sent north to Nunavut, while the remaining 450 megawatts will be sold to Canadian users west of Manitoba.
“Manitoba has a wealth of hydroelectric resources,“ he says, “and we should use them as a province to light up the North, to light up Western Canada and to help us build trade corridors. We’re looking for opportunities to make our economy stronger right across the True North, strong and free.” The directive regarding the 50 megawatts for Nunavut follows an announcement last month, in which the federal government committed an additional $2.
8 million in federal funding, for a total of $14.4 million, for the proposed Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link. As part of Monday’s announcement, Kinew also disclosed that Nunavut representatives will be in Winnipeg today to enter into a contract with the province for the northern transmission line to deliver hydroelectric power and telecommunications infrastructure to northern communities.
Under that plan, the Inuit-owned Nukik corporation aims to begin construction of a 1,200-kilometre, 150-megawatt transmission line with fibre-optic cable by 2028, and have it connected to the Manitoba grid by 2032. The project would eliminate that region’s dependence on expensive diesel-power electricity generation, and also eliminate the greenhouse gases emitted from those generators. Kinew says that exporting electricity to Nunavut is great for the environment, opens up a new export market for Manitoba’s hydroelectricity, and will create mining and industrial opportunities in Manitoba, but his announcement ignores some very obvious issues.
On several occasions over the past two years, we have pointed out that, according to Manitoba Hydro’s own projections, the utility requires an additional 10,000 to 16,000 megawatts of generating capacity by the early 2040s in order to satisfy anticipated demand. Last year, former Manitoba Hydro CEO Jay Grewal said that the province could require new energy generation as early as 2029, and must begin looking for ways to encourage Manitobans to reduce demand. Manitoba Hydro has also disclosed that it has received proposals from dozens of potential large-scale electricity users, but that the Crown corporation is unable to offer firm commitments to prospective customers, and cannot reserve electric supply for particular projects.
In fact, it revealed in 2023 that its “near-term” surplus electricity supply was so small that even a single energy-intensive connection could consume all remaining electrical capacity. Given that troubling reality, a decision that would free up 500 megawatts of much-needed electricity would appear to be a welcome step toward addressing our pending electricity shortage in the near term, and would potentially allow for a number of large-scale industrial projects to proceed in the province. And yet, nowhere in Kinew’s announcement was there any mention of the province’s impending power shortage, nor the role that the 500 megawatts of suddenly available electricity could play in addressing that problem and fuelling economic growth.
We agree with Progressive Conservative finance critic Lauren Stone, who told reporters that she has “a lot of questions on the financial implications of what this means,” at a time when Hydro is seeking an 11 per cent rate increase over three years. We also agree with University of Winnipeg political science professor Malcolm Bird, who says that Monday’s announcement will have “pretty significant effects on Hydro and its books.” He says that, if he was on the utility’s board of directors, he “might have some really, really, really significant concerns about this because Hydro’s in a real jam.
It has massive debt, it has aging infrastructure, its rates are capped and controlled and its operational decisions are significantly politicized.” That last part may be an understatement. Monday’s announcement, clothed in language relating to Canadian sovereignty and nationalism, could be viewed as more about Kinew’s growing profile in national politics and so-called nation-building than ensuring the financial stability of Manitoba Hydro and, even more important, ensuring that Manitoba continues to a have a stable, reliable and affordable supply of electricity for decades into the future.
At a time when Manitoba Hydro is burdened by a staggering debt load, yet needing to more than double its electricity generating capacity over the next 15 years, Kinew must explain to Manitobans how the exporting of much-needed electricity to other jurisdictions is in the interests of Manitoba Hydro and Manitobans generally. Advertisement Advertisement.
