Hurtling toward a power shortage

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/03/2025 (194 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two reports in yesterday’s Sun should cause readers to wonder what the Kinew government is doing with Manitoba Hydro, and how it will impact Westman.

In the first report — “Power is leverage against tariffs: Kinew” — readers learned that the government is pondering whether to use the province’s hydroelectric power as leverage in Canada’s trade war with America. Specifically, the government is considering the possibility of imposing a 25 per cent surcharge on Manitoba Hydro exports to the U.S., effective Monday.

The move would align with Ontario’s plan to impose a similar charge on electricity exports from that province. That charge will also reportedly take effect on Monday.

In the report, Premier Wab Kinew is quoted as saying “The fact that (energy) was to be tariffed at a different level shows that we have leverage, for us as a province and us as a country. The way you take on a bigger opponent is by using leverage effectively.”

That same report revealed that Hydro has several U.S. customers, and has contracts with Northern States Power that were signed in 2010 to supply up to 850 megawatts of hydroelectric power each year until 2025. It has signed two new five-year agreements with Northern States Power that are to commence on May 1.

That’s an odd thing for Manitoba Hydro to do, given that the utility is facing the prospect of not having enough electricity to meet demand within the province before the end of this decade. Why would they sign two five-year contracts to export energy to the U.S., given the imminent shortage they are facing?

That’s the question that logically flows from the second report in yesterday’s Sun — “Province weighs power source options” — which revealed that “Manitoba Hydro is proposing to spend $1.36 billion on a new fuel-burning station capable of generating 500 megawatts of electricity on demand, in order to stave off a power shortage expected as soon as five winters from now.”

That report told readers that the government has decided to phase out the on-demand use of Manitoba’s sole existing natural gas-fired plant — the 280-megawatt Brandon Generating Station — by 2035, but is planning to build a 100-megawatt transmission line from Portage la Prairie to Brandon by 2027.

Let’s review the facts: Manitoba is running out of electricity, and facing the prospect of blackouts within the next five years. Hydro admits it requires an additional 10,000 to 16,000 megawatts of generating capacity by the early 2040s, yet we are entering into contracts to sell power to U.S. companies.

In order to address that future electricity shortage, the province is considering the construction of a new natural gas-fired generating plant, but it is at the same time planning to shut down the Brandon natural gas-fired generating station because it has a policy against using natural gas to power generating plants.

It’s planning to shut down that plant in Brandon — and spend millions of dollars on a transmission line from Portage to Brandon that will be vulnerable to ice storms and line loss. That line would transmit less power than the Brandon plant can generate, despite the fact that Brandon already doesn’t have enough power to satisfy residential and industrial demand.

To quote Justin Trudeau, can somebody please make that make sense?

The Manitoba government should not be imposing 25 per cent surcharges on electricity that is being shipped to the U.S. because we should not be shipping that power south. We need it here in Manitoba, and here in Brandon in particular.

The shortage of surplus electricity in Westman is costing Brandon and the surrounding region economic development opportunities and jobs, and putting us at a disadvantage compared to almost every other area of the province. It’s unfair, unproductive and has to stop.

Given that reality, Manitoba Hydro shouldn’t be planning to shut down the existing generating station in Brandon, and it shouldn’t be spending money on a transmission line to ship power to Brandon from Portage. Rather, it should be keeping the existing plant in operation and adding to its generating capacity.

Over the past 19 months, I have discussed the concern that Manitoba Hydro isn’t moving fast enough to create the additional electricity generating capacity required to satisfy the expected demand. I have argued that the government doesn’t appear to be taking the problem seriously, and yesterday’s two reports only add to that concern.

We are hurtling toward an electricity shortage in this province, without a clear, credible plan to avert such a crisis from happening.