To meet its growing energy demands, Ontario has launched what it calls the largest competitive power purchase in the province’s history. Over the next decade, the effort aims to deliver up to 5 GW of new power, using a controversial mix of natural gas, renewables, nuclear, biomass and hydro, with an “all of the above” approach to fill an expected 60. % energy gap by 2050, said Energy Minister Stephen Lecce.
The province’s independent electricity system operator, which manages Ontario’s electricity system, must provide by Sept. 20 a design framework to accelerate the completion of the capacity acquisition by Feb. 28, 2026.
Ontario’s current grid-connected generation capacity is 38.26 GW. This new procurement builds on one completed this spring consisting of 3 GW of new battery and natural gas storage projects to be commissioned in 2026-2028. Thirteen battery storage projects selected from 48 bids include one in Edwardsburgh-Cardinal, Ontario, which at 390 MW would be the largest such facility in Canada. A 250 MW project is already under construction in southern Ontario.
All projects are required to provide financial incentives for indigenous communities, and the grid operator said those mandates also apply to new hire. There are also restrictions on the location of clean energy projects in agricultural areas, especially solar.
“We are prepared to move quickly to secure the provision of all eligible technologies,” said Lesley Gallinger, CEO of the network operator.
Regarding new nuclear power in the province, Nicolle Butcher, chief operating officer of Ontario Power Generation, supplier of about 50 per cent of the province’s power, told attendees at the Summit Future Energy Economy in Syracuse, NY, on Sept. 5 that aims to have its first advanced nuclear power facility online by 2030, when its six Candu large-scale reactors that dating back to the 1970s are slated to close.
He said contractor AECON and others have begun work at the site on its small modular reactors designed by GE Hitachi. Ontario Power is building four SMRs at the site of its four-unit Darlington nuclear plant, which has been in operation since the mid-1980s. “You need four in one place to understand the technology,” he said. Refurbishment of the last Darlington unit has also started. The utility will also deploy remote microgrids, Butcher said. “We have incredible support for nuclear [facilities] in the municipalities that welcome them”, he pointed out.
Ontario’s energy ministry has said the workforce needed to develop new resources will depend on the energy mix and the number of projects contracted. “We’ve hired 1,200 engineers in the last 18 months,” Butcher said. “But it’s the workforce of the trade that we’re most concerned about.”
Ontario’s decision to include natural gas in its future energy mix has come under fire. A national goal of net-zero energy generation by 2035 has worried many that it would affect 20-year gas development contracts already awarded. “There is a broader debate about the extent to which we as a country should continue to use natural gas,” Reena Goyal, an energy specialist at Toronto law firm Blakes, Cassels & Graydon LLP, said in a Financial Post opinion. The federal agency Environment Canada has drafted rules for phasing out the gas with limited-use exceptions until 2040, but they have not yet been finalized. Energy ministry officials and environmental advocates are debating whether renewables or gas would lower the cost for users over time.
