How “green” is Canada in terms of electricity generation?

It is well known that Canada is a big player in the renewable energy, but how much of their electricity is being generated from renewables? and how has this changed over time with the addition of new renewable technologies?

In this article, we are going to describe Canada’s electricity generation by using data and try to answer those questions and get a clear picture of the energy scene in this country.

To do the analysis, we are going to use three datasets:

• Canadian Electricity Statistics from 1950 to 2007, which is a compound of monthly energy generation by provinces and the whole country, divided by energy sector.
• Canadian Electricity Generation from 2008 to 2020, continuation of the previous dataset.
• BP’s Statistical Review from World Energy, world compound of energy statistics run by the multinational company.

All the graphs and analysis was done using Python, specifically Pandas, Numpy & Plotly. If you are interested in the code behind this article, please go to this Github repository.

The Canadian Electricity Statistics from 1950 to 2007 and Canadian Electricity Generation from 2008 to 2020 datasets, are licensed under the Open Government Licence — Canada.

Overall Electricity Generation

First, lets define what is electricity generation, this is how much electricity is being produced in a specific period of time. The most common unit is the Kilowatt/Hour, but for commodity we are going to use Gigawatt/Hour (GW/H).

Electricity source distribution in 2020

The main source of electricity generation in Canada by 2020 is the Hydraulic sector, accounting for 60% of all electricity being generated in Canada. The following source is the Fossil fuels with up to 17% and Nuclear with 15%.

Renewables besides Hydraulic have less impact in Canada’s electricity generation, as in combination they make up to 7% of all generation, with Wind as the main source.

Taking all renewables together, they account for around 68% of all electricity generation in Canada, making it a country with more than half of its generation renewable.

Electricity generation from 1950 to 2019

This distribution of electricity generation has changed over time, with the addition of new technologies and less use of other ones. But there is one constant in it, and that is Hydraulic being the most important energy source.

On the other hand, electricity from fossil fuels and nuclear started in 1977, and since that day, they have remained as second and third most important energy source, respectively.

The renewable electricity generation without Hydraulic has been low (less than 15,000 GW/H) prior to 2010. But it increased dramatically in 2016, more than double. By looking to a graph of the same period, but just with renewables besides Hydraulic, we can see the impact of this increment.

The big increase of electricity produced by renewables is due Wind turbines, this sector tripled its generation in just one year (2016). With that increased, Wind became the second most important renewable in Canada, just behind Hydraulic.

Biomass is the third most important renewable, and it started their generation in 1974. The Biomass sector grew constantly until 2002, when after that has made a plateau around 10,000 Gigawatts/Hour.

Solar started to produce significant amounts of energy in 2011, but it was until 2016, as with Wind, when the sector increased their generation up to 2,000 Gigawatts/Hour.

The other renewable source of electricity in Canada is Tidal, this source has never generated big amounts of electricity, with its top of generation at 27 Gigawatts/Hour. In 2019, the only Tidal energy plant in Canada was shut down, leading to no more electricity coming from this kind.

Electricity generation per province

Now, that we have a better picture of the generation in Canada as a country, let’s dig in the generation per province, focusing in their total generation and their most important source of electricity.

Total generation

The province with the biggest generation of electricity is Quebec, with around 122,000 Gigawatts/hour. It is followed by Ontario with 93,000 Gigawatts/hour. These two provinces make for 50% of all electricity generated in Canada so far in 2020.

Alberta and British Columbia generate around 20% of the country’s electricity. The region with the least production is the north, with less than 1%.

Main electricity source per province

By looking at the map, we can see that electricity generation is diverse in a per province basis, with Hydraulic and Fossil fuels being the most important source of electricity in 5 provinces each. This making total sense as Hydraulic is the biggest source of energy in the country and Fossil fuels is the second.

The other two most important sources of electricity in the remaining provinces are Nuclear (Ontario and New Brunswick) and Wind (Prince Edward Island).

Just in one province, the main source of electricity was a renewable besides Hydraulic. So, let’s analyze which are the main renewables sources in each province.

As seen in the map above, almost in every province the most important renewable source is Wind. The only province where Wind is not the main renewable source is in British Columbia, where the main renewable source of electricity in 2020 is Biomass.

Conclusions

It is a fact that Canada is a “green” country in terms of electricity generation, as around 68% percent of their generation comes from renewable sources, mainly Hydraulic and Wind. And this has been the standard for the country since the 50s, as the generation of electricity from Hydraulic sources has been growing from that year to today.

The Wind sector, it has exploited on recent years and with new technology and investment, it will keep growing and becoming a more important source for the country. And, this apply also to solar energy, where there is a big room of develop that hasn’t been really exploited.