Renewable energy expert Ralph Torrie speaking to reporters today in Fredericton

A renewable energy expert, who serves as research director at Corporate Knights magazine, says this is not the time for New Brunswick to be investing more than $1 billion in a big, gas/diesel generating plant on the Chignecto Isthmus.

“Why would you want to import gas and develop a long-term increased dependence on outside sources of energy when you’ve got what you need right here in your backyard?” Ralph Torrie asked today during a news conference in Fredericton hosted by New Brunswick Green Party leader David Coon and live-streamed on Facebook.

“The wind is here, by the way, in New Brunswick. You don’t have to import it from somewhere else,” Torrie said, adding that he has just completed what may be the first province-by-province analysis of what it would cost for Canada to transition from fossil fuels to renewables by 2050.

He says his report is under review by experts and should be available early next month.

It shows, he says, that investments in renewables such as wind and solar backed up by large-scale batteries and efficiency programs would lead to reductions in electricity use and big savings on energy bills.

“The savings will be nearly 50% of what New Brunswickers will otherwise be paying for fuel and electricity 20 years from now, if we make the smart choices now and invest in these new technologies.

“The money that will be saved will be needed in the medium term to cover those capital costs, but we can essentially eliminate fossil-fuel bills both for our cars and our homes and in the process deal with climate change and revitalize our economy.

“So, it’s a very good news story.”

Grid stability

When asked about New Brunswick Power’s argument that a gas plant would be needed to supply power when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, Torrie responded that batteries are the answer.

“The whole point of batteries is to address intermittency,” he says.

“So that’s why you develop the batteries along with the renewables. I don’t understand why one would argue against batteries on the basis that renewables are intermittent,” he adds.

“That’s why we need batteries.”

Torrie concedes that grid stability can be an issue as more renewables come on line, but argues that the newest batteries already in use in Europe and Australia, for example, provide the same stability that rotating gas turbines do.

“You don’t build a gas plant to create a stable grid,” he says.

“You build a gas plant to make electricity, and if this one is being built only to provide peaking power, that is definitely no longer the most economical way to provide that kind of short-term power. The combination of storage and batteries can do that.”

Energy efficiency

Torrie also points out that heat pumps reduce energy costs and people should not be waiting for months or years to get them.

He adds that electric vehicles are four times more efficient than gas-powered ones.

“Create an electric vehicle charging infrastructure where the cars can actually feed the grid and not just be charged by the grid. This is going to be a huge dimension of the future that’s coming,” he says.

“Our electric vehicles actually all have batteries that most days are not used much. If the grid can access those batteries, it makes a huge difference in how easily and reliably we’ll be able to develop the renewable system. These are the new ideas that are sweeping the world in terms of where electricity systems are going,” he adds.

“I would strongly recommend that there be a full, comprehensive review of any suggestion that a big $1.4 billion gas plant is the next thing that should happen here in New Brunswick. You could very well end up with a plant which is obsolete before it pays for itself,” Torrie warns.

“It’s a very high-risk decision.”