Powering Canadian communities

More than 80 per cent of Canadians live in urban centres, a number that’s been steadily increasing since records began in 1851. That leaves most of our attention focused on cities, especially when it comes to energy. Where the people live, the energy will follow.

But in a public environment where we’re increasingly concerned about the costs of our power, both financial and environmental, we can’t forget about our rural communities either. Fortunately, local governments and the communities themselves are already paying attention.

At 3.3 inhabitants per square kilometre, in a total area of almost 10 million square kilometres, Canada is one of the least densely populated places on Earth. That leaves us trying to stretch 160,000 kilometres of high voltage lines between our power plants and our major urban centres, an enormous grid that still isn’t large enough to reach our most remote communities. Whether these communities are isolated by distance, a harsh climate, unyielding geography or (usually) some combination of the three, the result is that they have to generate their own power. And, as it happens, generating your own power tends to be a fairly dirty business.

Diesel generators have been the go-to solution for small communities’ power needs for years — they provide a dependable source of power and can be built on a relatively small scale, or they can purchased and imported. But while these generators allow remote communities to stay powered without staying connected to the grid, they’re also using fuel whose carbon emissions are under increasing scrutiny.

In Northwest Territories, for example, the territory’s 43,000 citizens (spread across almost 1.2 million square kilometres) get most of their power from 25 diesel generating facilities dotted in communities. But under Northwest Territories’ energy strategy, Community Energy Plans would be implemented across the territory by 2011, encouraging a more sustainable approach to each community’s power generation.

One of the most practical methods of improving remote communities’ energy use has been cogeneration. By harnessing the heat that is generally lost in facilities only designed to generate electricity, cogeneration plants are able to provide both heat and electricity, requiring between 10 and 30 per cent less fuel.

Given that communities in northern climates also rely on carbon-intensive heating oil for their heating, it’s not hard to see why cogeneration plants would reduce both the financial and environmental costs of energy. And it isn’t only northern communities changing the way they use energy.

BC’s Bioenergy Network, for example, has already begun awarding contracts for wood waste cogeneration plants under their BC Bioenergy Strategy. And the Ontario Government, like many other provincial governments, is encouraging agricultural operations to consider wind and other alternative sources of generation.

And communities are still actively seeking out new opportunities to generate their own power in more cost-effective and environmentally responsible ways.

From April 21 to 22, the Town of Cochrane, Ontario (population: less than 6,000) will be hosting its Energize Your Community Conference, a showcase for communities hoping to encourage green community energy initiatives. Featuring talks from organizations like Nipissing University’s Biomass Innovation Centre and the Ontario Power Authority, the conference bills itself as a chance for like-minded communities to network and learn. Its scale is appropriately modest, but if you’re a community interested in joining the conversation on changing energy use in Canada’s, go ahead and drop them a line holly.touchette@town.cochrane.on.ca. After all, in a country where only 20 per cent live outside of cities, communities need to stick together.