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A report by the National Energy Board said that Canada generated 66 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources in 2015. Hydroelectric power accounted for roughly 60 per cent of electricity supply, generating around 79,000 megawatts in 2015………

As large-scale hydropower projects face some resistance, wind and solar are set to step grown rapidly in recent years as their costs continue to fall.

Wind capacity in Canada increased 20-fold between 2005 and 2015, according to the NEB, and accounted for 7.7 per cent of total electricity capacity in 2015. Solar accounted for 1.5 per cent.

As Canada’s dependence on renewable sources like solar and wind grows — albeit gradually — governments are now grappling with how to build the high-voltage transmission lines that would be needed to offset intermittency……
Substituting intermittent power supplies with more stable ones is vastly more costly in Canada than in higher density countries like Denmark, which generates more than 50 per cent of its electricity from wind power.

In January, researchers at the University of Ottawa’s Institute of the Environment released a report that analyzed the long-term cost savings of building high-voltage connecting lines between several hydro rich and hydro poor regions—for example between Alberta and British Columbia.

“We found that you can achieve emission reductions at a lower cost if you build those transmission lines, and that’s including the cost of construction,” said Brett Dolter, one of the report’s authors.

Canada produced roughly 10 per cent of hydro capacity worldwide in 2015, second only to China at 29 per cent, the NEB data shows. Brazil and the U.S. produced nine per cent and 8 per cent, respectively.

Canada’s proportion of electricity generated by renewables is the sixth-highest in the world behind Denmark, Norway, Brazil, Austria and New Zealand. Only 12 countries generate more than half of their electricity from renewable supplies.

jsnyder@postmedia.com http://business.financialpost.com/news/two-thirds-of-canadas-electricity-now-comes-from-renewable-energy