As the world’s sixth-largest electricity producer and third-largest electricity exporter, Canada is an electricity heavyweight. And with a grid that is already 83 per cent emission-free, the country seems well positioned for meeting ambitious net-zero and economic ambitions.

However, the Canadian Climate Institute (formerly the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices) predicts that the electrification of Canada’s grid – which involves connecting an increasing number of electric vehicles (EVs), heating systems and industries to a clean electricity grid – will require the production of roughly twice as much non-emitting electricity as it does today in just under three decades.

However, when we talk about expanding Canada’s electricity grid, we tend to focus strictly on increasing the generation of clean electricity, which according to Justin Rangooni, executive director of Energy Storage Canada, will not be enough. We must also knit the system together through the large-scale build-out of diverse forms of energy storage, which can optimize generation assets and help to advance Canada on its path to carbon neutrality.

“Canada has set an ambitious goal to achieve a net-zero electricity system by 2035, the success of which depends on energy storage,” he says. “The versatility of energy storage is going to be absolutely essential to meeting the needs of more end-use electricity, an increasing volume of which will be generated by intermittent renewable and non-emitting resources.”