Canada and US set to link up with '1000s of kilometres of high voltage lines'

18 December 2009 by Diane Bailey

NORTH AMERICA: Interest in new cross-border electricity interconnections could be significant over the next decade as Canadian provinces and US states look to fulfill renewable energy mandates and emissions reduction goals, says a report from Canada's National Energy Board (NEB).

British Columbia and Newfoundland are among the Canadian states set to increase their export capability

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The NEB, which regulates the construction and operation of international power lines, said there are "a multitude of such potential projects totalling thousands of kilometres of high-voltage transmission lines" on the drawing board.

Although it acknowledges not all projects are likely to go ahead, the report identifies proposals in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick that would increase export capacity by about 12 GW.

Electricity transmission over international power lines has almost doubled since electricity markets started to restructure in the mid-1990s and Canada as a whole has remained a net exporter to the US.

"Electricity exports represented about C$3.8 billion in revenues for Canada last year, a 22% jump from 2007 and an upward trend expected to continue as provinces build generation and transmission sources," the report says.