Recent legislative, procurement and governmental updates, including BC Hydro’s upcoming Call for Power and updates to the BC Clean Energy Act will create increased opportunities for renewable energy development in the province. Updates to Energy Objectives under the BC Clean Energy Act On February 15, 2024, the Government of British Columbia announced updates to the energy objectives in the Clean Energy Act (British Columbia), with the intent of maximizing affordability and reducing carbon pollution in the province. These changes signal a current focus of the Government of British Columbi ..read more

The topic of renewable energy in Alberta again recently made major headlines across the province and country. As we outlined in our earlier blogs Pause on Renewable Project Approvals Part 1 and Pause on Renewable Project Approvals Part 2, a surprise August 2023 announcement from the Alberta’s Minister of Affordability and Utilities (“Minister”) pausing the issuance of approvals for renewable energy projects (“Approval Pause”) and subsequent launch of an associated Alberta Utilities Commission (“AUC”) inquiry (“Inquiry”), previously garnered wide spread press coverage. Having completed Mod ..read more

On November 28, 2023, the Alberta government introduced the Alberta Carbon Capture Incentive Program (“ACCIP”), a new grant offered by the provincial government to incentivize carbon capture, utilization, and storage (“CCUS”) projects located within the province. The announcement was quickly followed by the federal government’s introduction of its legislation setting out the previously announced investment tax credit for CCUS projects (the “ITC”). The ACCIP provides a 12% grant that can be coupled with the ITC to support new CCUS projects in the province of Alberta. These two incentives will c ..read more

Amendments to electricity legislation in Atlantic Canada will create new opportunities for developers, investors and lenders, and allow for more efficient procurement of renewable power projects in these jurisdictions. Clean Power Goals in Nova Scotia In October of 2021, the province of Nova Scotia passed The Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act. 2021, c. 20, which contains 28 ambitious climate goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move towards clean and renewable energy, among other things. Recently, the Province has shifted its focus to developing local renewable power ..read more

On October 13, 2023, the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) released Reference re Impact Assessment Act,2023 SCC 23 (“SCC Reference”), in which the majority found a large portion of the federal Impact Assessment Act, SC 2019, c 28 (“IAA”) exceeds federal jurisdiction. The majority, five of the presiding seven Justices, found that the portion of the IAA that dealt with “designated projects” was ultra vires Parliament, both because it is not directed at regulating “effects within federal jurisdiction” and because the defined term “effects within federal jurisdiction” is out of step with P ..read more

On August 4, 2023, the Department of Finance (“Finance”) released a substantive piece of draft legislation for a number of investment tax credits previously announced by Finance and aimed at renewable and clean energy sectors (the “Proposed Legislation”). The Proposed Legislation addresses the new Investment Tax Credit for Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (“CCUS”), changes to the Zero-Admission Technology Manufacturing Deduction, and the tax treatment of lithium recovered from brine deposits. This Proposed Legislation also addresses prior proposals from Finance related to the Clean Tech ..read more

The topic of renewable energy in Alberta recently made major headlines across the province and country due to a surprise announcement from Alberta’s Minister of Affordability and Utilities (“Minister”).[1] On August 3, 2023, the Minister announced that the Alberta Utilities Commission (“AUC”) was being directed to immediately pause the issuance of approvals for new renewable electricity projects, citing a need to review policies and procedures currently in place relating to development of these projects (“Policies”) (Creating certainty for renewable projects | alberta.ca). The approval of powe ..read more

On December 19, 2022, Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, announced that the calls for tenders for a 1,000-megawatt block of wind energy and a 1,300-megawatt block of renewable energy, which were supposed to be launched by Hydro-Québec no later than December 31, 2022, were being postponed. As stated by Mr. Fitzgibbon, the calls for tenders were postponed to allow Hydro-Québec to better identify geographical locations where grid capacity remains available or where an upgrade can be made quickly in a way to ensure that the connection of future projects to Hydro-Qu ..read more

In this webinar (in French), Maxime Jacquin and Dominique Rolland, partners in our Corporate group, discuss recent trends in project development and financing. They cover recent developments in hydrogen and clean fuels, renewable energy in Quebec and present an overview of the past year's infrastructure projects (46 minutes). > See all Stikeman Elliott multimedia content ..read more

The City of Edmonton (Edmonton) has published a District Energy Strategy. To meet its climate targets, Edmonton aims to reduce emissions from heating and cooling buildings through a “City-wide decarbonized district energy network” to provide emissions-free thermal energy to connected buildings. The District Energy Strategy was developed to support this objective. In support of the District Energy Strategy, an analysis of housing density was performed to identify which Edmonton neighbourhoods are likely to have sufficient thermal demand density to support a district energy system, coupled with ..read more