
[ad_1]
Delegates attending the recent P3 conference focused on Canada’s energy future heard that the industry must build clean, green, big and fast for the nation to transform its grid and achieve its carbon reduction goals.
“Doing one-off energy projects with a $200,000 grant here and a half-million dollar grant there just isn’t going to make a difference,” said panelist Hassan Khan of Johnson Controls International (JCI) during a presentation titled Start Me: Canada’s Energy Renaissance.

Khan was speaking on the first day of the Canadian Council on Public-Private Partnerships (CCPPP) conference held Nov. 21-22 in Toronto.
“Today is definitely the time to act and take advantage of scale.”
With a 2025 net-zero goal in sight, Canada has less than 30 years to wean itself off oil and gas and build tens of billions of dollars worth of hydrogen, solar, hydroelectric, wind and traditional nuclear and small modular reactor power plants. . And battery transmission and storage projects will require billions more in investment, the panelists said.
In addition to Khan, whose firm will receive $100 million from the Canadian Infrastructure Bank (CIB) to serve as an aggregator for the redevelopment, other panelists included CIB CEO Ehren Cory, P1 Consulting president Louise Paneton and Bruce Power CEO Mike Rencheck.
Khan is JCI’s managing director responsible for sustainable infrastructure in Canada. JCI works at a completely different level than before, he said.
A decade ago his firm would sign performance contracts to upgrade structures and improve HVAC, lighting and controls. Now the projects are huge and focused on leveraging capital, expanding to decarbonization opportunities and renovating entire energy systems.
Power transmission and microgrid systems are now typical, Khan said.
Make no mistake, Khan said, big changes to Canada’s energy system are coming fast.
“We’re seeing that with this transition, and whether the client views their strategy as electrification or some form of future that will involve a fundamental shift in the technology that provides comfort services to their buildings,” he said.
Bruce Power is a pioneer in clean energy, and with its life extension project, which will invest $13 billion to strengthen units three through eight, it is like building three large new nuclear plants, Renczek said.
In addition, it is forming new partnerships as it expands beyond traditional nuclear.

At a time of economic uncertainty, Renczek said, proposing long-term, large-scale investments is one way to maintain a price cap not only for his company but also for its many Canadian suppliers. The P3 deal it signed in 2016 allowed firms such as Aecon and SNC-Lavalin to plan eight or 10 years into the future and recapitalize their manufacturing facilities.
“Because of that long-term view, that stable energy policy, companies have been able to lock in prices in the 2017 timeframe and rebuild their manufacturing infrastructure right here in Canada,” Renczek said.
The CIB has been given $35 billion by the federal government to continue its ever-expanding mandate, and green energy is one of its key demands, Corey said. His support for reconstruction is a way to avoid and start that sector, he said, and to bring certainty to projects for his partners.
“In our view, this is a great time to invest,” Corey said. “Uncertainty is a great opportunity for investors to put money into projects with a positive return – building reconstruction, deploying electric fleets, things like that, and the payoffs will only get better in the future.”
Nuclear power is a non-emitting source of baseload energy and represents a huge part of Canada’s energy future, Corey said. CIB’s latest round of discussions with the federal government has confirmed that small modular reactors (SMRs) will be a significant solution, including industrial applications, Corey said, pointing to recent investment in the Darlington SMR project.
Hydrogen fuels will also be an important part of Canada’s energy solution, Corey said, with exportable technology making Canada a world leader. He told the delegates that they expect CIB’s investment in the hydrogen energy project in the near future.
Panneton’s firm specializes in Alternative Service Solutions (ASD) and P3 procurement, which are similar, she said. She frequently advises public owners on optimizing their infrastructure portfolio through P3, ASD, collaborative contracting frameworks and internal resources.
The benefits of collaboration, whether through ASD or P3, she said, is that it allows owners to free up capital for more projects.
“The capital that they would have spent on fixing their HVAC system, replacing their windows, they’re able to reallocate to something else,” Paneton said.
Follow the author on Twitter @DonVall_DCN.
[ad_2]
Source link