Prolonged drought and extreme weather are forcing Canada to import electricity from the US after nearly two decades of exporting excess hydropower to its neighbour.
Canada is the world’s third-largest producer of hydroelectricity, behind Brazil and China, and hydropower accounts for close to 62 per cent of its total domestic electricity generation, according to official data.
But surging power demand linked to digitisation and the reshoring of manufacturing has collided with reduced electricity supply because of drought, complicating Canada’s energy transition and its trade relationship with its powerful neighbour.
Canada’s official drought monitor shows large swaths of the country are experiencing severe or moderate drought, in particular its top hydropower-producing provinces of Québec, British Columbia and Manitoba.
The challenge facing Canada’s hydropower sector is mirrored in many other parts of the world, with drought causing global hydroelectricity generation to slump to a five-year low last year, according to the UK Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy.
The International Energy Agency said severe droughts in China, the US and other nations had resulted in an “exceptional shortfall of hydropower” in 2023. The switch to fossil fuel alternatives to plug the gap was responsible for more than 40 per cent of the rise in global greenhouse gas emissions last year, it said.