Challenges and opportunities

Demand for new infrastructure investments
Current estimates by the Canadian Electricity Association project that electricity demand growth in Canada will grow between 1 and 1.5 per cent each year for the foreseeable future. This means that significant investment in generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure will be required to meet this demand. The CEA currently estimates this total at $150 billion over the next 20 years.

High cost of substations and protective equipment
Substations consist of high cost capital equipment, making the components hard to replace. One of the challenges that system operators face is using current substation assets more efficiently, so that they extend the life of the equipment and avoid needing to replace the high cost equipment.

Energy efficiency
Recent electricity price spikes, supply constraints and the August 2003 blackout in Ontario and the United States have helped to raise energy efficiency as an important public issue. In Ontario, initial efforts between the provincial government and local electric distribution companies are under way to identify opportunities and programs to improve the efficient use of electricity. In other provinces, such as British Columbia and Manitoba, electric utilities have well-established energy efficiency and demand-side management programs, and a long history of effectively delivering these programs to their customers.

New standards for power reliability
The 2003 power blackout and the challenges resulting from the unbundling of generation, transmission and distribution in restructured markets in Canada and the United States have prompted calls for new legislation in the U.S. to mandate power reliability standards. Canadian utilities, which are interconnected to U.S. power systems, are actively monitoring this policy development.

Power quality issues
Fluctuations and distortions in electricity voltage can sometimes occur as a result of the operation of electric transmission and distribution systems or the presence of customer loads (such as industrial furnaces, electronic equipment and motors with variable speed drives) that affect the voltage. These voltage changes (which include short interruptions, frequency variations, and temporary over-voltages or under-voltages and harmonics) will usually not cause problems for equipment or facilities. But some electronic and microprocessor equipment, used in industry and businesses, is sensitive to these changes, and can experience “power quality” problems. The electricity industry is working with customers and other stakeholders to better understand the issue of power quality and to develop solutions, such as improved operating practices and better design of customer equipment and installations, to make equipment less sensitive to voltage variations.