The Globe and Mail - Droughts create brutal challenges for hydroelectric utilities. Is Canada doomed to experience more of them?
“This sequence of floods and droughts is our future, along with warmer, less snowy conditions and fewer glaciers. That’s going to make hydroelectricity generation in Canada, as a whole, much more challenging.”
Manitoba sources the vast majority of it’s electricity needs from a series of hydroelectric dams scattered throughout the province (97% in 2019). But climate driven changes in regional hydrology have begun to exert a huge financial toll on what should be a dependable source of renewable energy. The historic drought of 2021 - the worst that Manitoba has seen in decades - caused water levels and power production to drop at nearly all of the provinces hydroelectric dams.
A new report by Manitoba Hydro outlines the financial impact of the drought - a net loss of $248 million for the 2021-22 fiscal year (a swing of -$367 in net earnings year-over-year).
Paradoxically, climate change is projected to increase the frequency of both drought and flooding in many regions across Canada. This was demonstrated in Manitoba, which saw the largest spring flows ever recorded in the months following the drought.
“But in the space of a few months, the problem disappeared: Huge spring water flows, the largest since record-keeping began more than a century ago, caused Lake Winnipeg to rise more quickly than ever before, reaching its highest levels since 1976.”
Distribution of power generation in Manitoba by source for 2019. Source: https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-manitoba.html