The latest installment of Shift comes to you from sunny Calgary, where it’s currently a balmy 2 C. I can tell you that that’s a major reprieve compared to two weekends ago, when temperatures plunged as low as -34 C and pushed Alberta’s electricity grid to the brink.

The brutal cold snap caused two natural-gas plants in the province to go offline, and with wind and solar output plummeting to zero, pushed Alberta’s power grid to the upper limits of its capacity. In the middle of our Saturday movie night (I’m still shaking my head about Saltburn) the province issued a series of late-night emergency alerts in an effort to stave off a looming blackout. The government urged residents to turn off major appliances, refrain from using block heaters—and, as some observers later noted with interest, unplug their electric vehicles. 

The alerts reinforced uncomfortable questions about the province’s, and Canada’s, ability to meet rising electricity demands, particularly as more drivers adopt EVs. The Canada Energy Regulator expects nationwide demand to grow nearly 50 per cent between 2021 and 2050, with transportation requirements like electric vehicles making up the biggest chunk of that growth. 

Across the country, provincial leaders and power companies are working to meet that rising demand. Last week, British Columbia laid out a $36-billion plan to build out emissions-free power supplies. Michael Sabia, the failed renovator of Canada’s Finance Department, has outlined an up to $185-billion scheme as Hydro-Québec’s CEO to aggressively expand the province’s power capacity. Manitoba and the federal government are spending a combined $476 million to build eight new hydroelectric turbines. Edmonton-based Capital Power and Ontario Power Generation are studying the feasibility of small nuclear reactors in Alberta. 

The question is whether any of that infrastructure will be built in time—or at all. Francis Bradley, CEO of Electricity Canada, has doubts that Canada’s regulatory regimes, in their current configuration, are equal to the task of approving major projects on tighter deadlines. Commercial-scale projects like transmission lines and natural-gas plants can take more than 10 years just to secure approvals. 

“I’m not worried about the grid today,” he said. “I’m not worried about the grid tomorrow. I’m worried about when we get into the longer term—as electrification increases—whether or not the approvals processes for good projects are going to be able to keep up with the need to build these good projects.” 

He’s not alone. Edward Greenspon, president of the Public Policy Forum think tank, said last year that Canada was “way behind where we need to be” in building the required infrastructure to reach net-zero targets. 

Either way, Bradley said in an interview with The Logic, it’s not clear that EVs are the foundation of the problem. EVs will make up a significant portion of future electricity demand, but smaller than demand tied to sheer population growth, he said.   

What’s more, EVs are essentially mobile batteries that could help make the grid more efficient—used to add energy to the grid during shortages, or offering more steady electricity demand by charging them at night, when power consumption levels are lower. 

Bradley said that particular insight was reinforced for him when he bought his first EV—a Volkswagen ID.4 SUV—about seven months ago. 

“It’s just a big, honkin’ 82-kilowatt battery that just happens to have four wheels attached to it,” he said. 

Mobile batteries or not, Canada faces a steep road to meeting electricity demand. Alberta’s power emergency was met with the usual paint-by-numbers analyses that call for level-headed public policy and smart capital to avoid future blackouts. But for the Albertans who, like me, were forced to consider how they might fight off the biting cold should the lights go out, the question of grid stability is no longer an abstract matter.

Read Shift—The Logic’s authoritative weekly newsletter on automotive technology industry news—for more; and if you know someone who should be reading it, they can sign up here.