Electricity Canada on Federal Budget 2023: Funding for electrification is good news

OTTAWA, ON, March 28, 2023 /CNW/ - The 2023 federal budget has made critical investments that will support the expansion of Canada's electricity system to meet the needs of reaching net zero while addressing affordability for electricity customers and preserving reliability. In particular, new and expanded investment tax credits, and moving projects faster and providing greater certainty are important developments. All these reflect the recommendations identified by Electricity Canada in its recent state of the electricity industry report, Build It.

Electrification, using electricity as the primary power source, is essential to achieving net zero emissions and, in the long term, will provide Canada with efficient, affordable, and reliable energy. The electricity sector in Canada wants to build the necessary infrastructure needed to make this happen.

The federal budget puts us in gear to achieve this. Electricity Canada is pleased with important initiatives announced today in A Made-in-Canada Plan: Strong Middle Class, Affordable Economy, Healthy Future, including:

• A Clean electricity Investment Tax credit for 15% of most clean generation and interprovincial transmission investments, available to non-tax paying entities.
• $3 billion to recapitalize key funding programs including Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathways, Smart Grids and offshore wind.
• An expanded role for the Canada Infrastructure Bank to provide $20 billion in investments to support clean electricity and clean growth infrastructure projects
• Beginning investments with the Canada Growth Fund, including carbon contracts for difference (CCFDs), to help provide certainty to major investments. The government will also consult on a broader approach to CCFDs to make the system more predictable.
• A commitment to create a concrete plan to improve efficiency of impact assessment and permitting process for major projects by the end of 2023.

Importantly, the budget advances the elements of a Canadian Electricity Strategy, which should coordinate new and existing programs, help provide regulatory clarity and offer a clear path for getting projects built faster. We need this game changer and the work the government has committed to doing will advance that.

This budget will not only make a low-carbon future possible, it will also make clean electricity more affordable. The big "winners" of today's budget are Canadian electricity customers.

QUOTE:

"With one of the cleanest electricity grids in the world, achieving our climate goals and electrifying Canada can be done... we just needed to build it. Today's federal budget puts Canada's electricity providers on a path to do so. We are ready to get to work to make Canada's electricity, clean, affordable and reliable for all Canadians."

-Francis Bradley, CEO, Electricity Canada

Founded in 1891, Electricity Canada (formerly the Canadian Electricity Association) is the national forum and voice of the evolving and innovative electricity business in Canada. The Association supports, through its advocacy efforts, the regional, national, and international success of its members. Electricity Canada members generate, transmit, and distribute electrical energy to industrial, commercial, residential, and institutional customers across Canada. Members include integrated electric utilities, independent power producers, transmission and distribution companies, power marketers, and system operators, who together deliver electricity to all Canadians, in every province and territory.

SOURCE Electricity Canada