Future Economy Series:
Energy Webinar Recap

Article

August 4, 2020

Experts from the energy sector, Mark Warren, Madeleine McPherson, Cole Sayers joined our weekly webinar on Tuesday July 28, 2020 to discuss recommendations for The Road to 2050 - Bridging the Gap Between Challenges & Solutions in the Energy Sector report. The document provides a snapshot of roadmaps and approaches in use in the energy sector in BC in relation to meeting CleanBC climate targets for 2030-2050.

It became clear in the discussion that the industry experts agreed with the top priority recommendation of developing a decision tree for future direction in energy pathways in BC. They agreed that the most effective pathway toward GHG reduction in BC will require a variety of technical and market solutions and that different infrastructure systems within the energy sector need to be integrated.

From the First Nations perspective, Cole Sayers commented that traded solutions as well as a call for independent power production are needed and of interest to First Nations communities.

One of the opportunities discussed was to create a consortium of stakeholders in the energy sector (representative of the Helix-5). However, in the BC and Canadian context, there is no such institutional infrastructure that links research from the labs up to the policy makers to enable those actions.

The participants agreed that the CORE Cleantech Cluster plays an essential role in supporting the objectives and helping the province to achieve its emission goals. In relation to the energy sector, the experts see the following CORE Cluster recommendations of particular relevance:

Engagement opportunities with First Nations, including capacity building.
Supporting research and commercialization of distributed energy projects including electricity, renewable gas and carbon capture.

Bringing stakeholders from research to industry to government with different perspectives together to exchange their insights and solutions. This will be critical for filling the gaps we outlined and addressing the fundamental changes.

Special thanks to our guest speakers Mark Warren, Director in FortisBC, Madeleine McPherson, Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering at University of Victoria, and Cole Sayers, BC Indigenous Clean Energy Initiatives Coordinator from New Relationship Trust.

About the Roadmap Landscape Series

CORE Cleantech Cluster and Foresight are producing a series of roadmap landscapes in the six sectors of CORE’s focus. The intent is to provide a snapshot of the roadmaps that exist in each, and how they are being used.

This will help identify gaps in the required elements, as well as places where roadmaps either don’t exist or are insufficient to achieve the government’s targets.