In announcing the National Electrical Strategy Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the federal government is also expanding support for energy-saving retrofits for up to one million households through vehicles like financing and grants. He said it includes making it easier to transition from propane, oil, and electric baseboard heating to more affordable electric heat pumps.

Mark Carney believes electricity is the solution to Canada’s energy security and the government plans to double the capacity of the electrical grid by 2050 which he says means up to $15 billion in total energy savings by 2050 and lower total energy costs for 7 in 10 Canadian households. And in order to see those savings come to fruition he says it will require a wide range of energy including natural gas.

The plan includes adjusting clean electricity regulations in order to achieve the flexibility needed and amid consultation with provinces, territories, Indigenous Peoples, utilities and unions will be a concerted focus on connecting the country’s fragmented East-West-North electrical grids through new and expanded transmission lines.

Carney states, “Canada’s electricity system is currently fragmented across provincial and territorial grids, costing us billions of dollars in outages, duplicative infrastructure, and wasted power. These consultations will tackle common barriers to interprovincial interties so we can unite our grids and deliver more reliable, affordable power to all Canadians.”

The Prime Minister notes that doubling the capacity of the electrical grid by 2050 will require generational investments in generation, transmission, distribution, storage, grid modernization and it will require more than 130,000 high-skilled workers in the same time frame.