Loop or no loop, officials say NS is on track to meet green energy targets

Nova Scotia’s Deputy Secretary of Natural Resources and Renewable Energy is confident that the province can meet its 2030 target for generating electricity from renewable sources, with or without the Atlantic Loop.

But an opposition MLA isn’t so sure the same can be said of the plan to get rid of the coal.

Liberal MLA Iain Rankin, a former provincial environment minister and prime minister, noted at a meeting Tuesday of the legislature’s standing committee on natural resources and economic development that three coal-fired power plants should now be shut down. So far there are none.

“At this point, this late in the game, I don’t believe the government will be out of coal by 2030,” Rankin told reporters after the meeting.

But Karen Gatien, deputy secretary of Natural Resources and Renewable Energy, said with the province receiving the entire share of Labrador’s hydroelectric power through the Maritime Link, things look promising.

“That has been a huge change for Nova Scotia Power,” she told reporters after the meeting. “They can rely on it. We need to keep going a little bit longer for the province to fully benefit from it.”

The province has legislated that 80 percent of the province’s power will come from renewable sources by 2030 and that all coal-fired plants will be phased out by the same year.

Power from the Maritime Link, the submarine cable connecting Newfoundland to Nova Scotia, will represent 20 percent of the province’s projected electricity mix by the end of 2030.

Gatien said planned expansion of wind (and to a lesser extent, solar) projects, along with the pursuit of battery storage to provide base backup, should see the county go the rest of the way.

Gatien said the plan should still allow the province to stop using coal to generate electricity by 2030, though she said some plants may need to be converted to natural gas until they can use hydrogen or other biofuels.

The comments come as the provincial and federal governments continue to go back and forth on how the Atlantic Loop, a project that would help deliver hydropower from Quebec and Labrador to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia would be funded.

There was a time when it was seen as the best and most cost-effective way for Nova Scotia to get rid of coal. Officials here no longer believe that to be the case.

New transmission lines

But even if the loop doesn’t go through in its entirety, Gatien said the plan remains to at least continue with new transmission lines between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The so-called intertie is estimated to cost about $700 million and would generate more wind power and enable greater battery storage capacity.

“We agree that this is a critical interest and that we need to get going as soon as possible,” Gatien said in response to a question from Rankin at the meeting.

New Democrat MLA Susan Leblanc told reporters she has watched with concern as Prime Minister Tim Houston’s importance to the Atlantic Loop to meeting climate goals has changed.

The Prime Minister recently suggested that the Atlantic Loop is too expensive. The federal government has put $4.5 billion on the table, but the province has said the money is a loan that will have to be paid back by Nova Scotia taxpayers.

Leblanc said the prime minister and his government owe the public a clearly defined plan outlining how and when the targets will be met.

“This flip-flopping on the Atlantic Loop – whether you support it or not – it’s disturbing and it doesn’t give us confidence in what the government is doing. There may be a lot of ways to get to those climate goals, we just need to see how they show us the way, so we can trust that we will meet them.”

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