How Alberta's gas-powered electricity stands out in Canada's mostly emissions-free system

As Canada looks to move its power grid toward net-zero with new federal regulations, the vast majority of the country already gets its electricity from emissions-free sources.

In 2020, 84 per cent of the country's electricity came from these sources — mostly hydro, along with smaller amounts of nuclear, wind and solar.

Alberta is unlike most of the rest of the country, however.

While renewable power generation has roughly doubled in the past seven years — and the province now gets more electricity from wind and solar than it does from coal — those green sources of power only amounted for 13 per cent of total generation in the province in 2022.

The vast majority of Alberta's electricity, rather, comes from natural gas.

This is why the draft clean electricity regulations released by the federal government on Thursday have an outsize impact in this province.

Alberta accounted for 47 per cent of the country's total greenhouse-gas emissions from the electricity sector in 2021, the most recent year for which we have a full inventory.

That's actually down, slightly, from years prior: back in 2015, Alberta accounted for 59 per cent of electricity-sector emissions.

The reduction is due to the fact that Alberta has been phasing out coal-fired power, which was one of the most emissions-intensive ways to generate electricity.

That process began in 2015 with the goal of completely phasing out coal by 2030.

But the transition went faster than initially anticipated and Alberta power plants are now expected to burn their last lump of coal later this year.

Natural gas has taken up most of that slack, which has roughly half the emissions intensity of coal.

But to achieve its climate goals, the federal government believes those gas plants will eventually have to be phased out, too — mostly.

There are some exceptions in the regulations for continued use of natural gas in peak-demand periods, and some allowance for regular gas-fired generation coupled with carbon capture and storage.