Module: Electricity
How clean is Canada’s grid, and why does it vary so much?
About 77% of Canada’s electricity came from low-carbon sources in 2025, mostly hydro. But the national figure averages provinces that run almost entirely on water with provinces that still burn coal and gas.
- Low-carbon share, 2025
- 77%
- 75% in 2005
- Hydro, 2025
- 345TWh
- 53% of generation
- Coal power since 2005
- −74%
- 103 → 27 TWh
- Electricity-sector GHG
- −57%
- 2005–2024, 116 → 50 Mt
The national mix
Electricity generation by source, Canada, 1990–2025
Terawatt-hours per year. Low-carbon sources are stacked at the bottom, fossil fuels on top.
Geography decides the grid
What powers each province?
Dominant generation sources, from the Canada Energy Regulator’s provincial profiles (2021 data; Quebec 2018). Darker means more carbon-intensive.
Alberta
73.9 TWh generated in 2021. Published shares of generation:
| Natural gas | 63% |
| Coal | 22% |
| Wind | 9% |
| Hydro | 3% |
| Bioenergy | 2% |
Provincial shares come from different years and are rounded. Run the data pipeline to replace them with Statistics Canada table 25-10-0020-01 for a consistent year.
Cleaner over time, but only if the rivers cooperate
The low-carbon share has moved between about 71% and 82% since 1990. Hydro output depends on rainfall and snowpack: dry years from 2023 cut hydro generation, and gas filled part of the gap.
Low-carbon share of electricity
Hydro, nuclear, wind, solar and bioenergy as a share of generation (%).
Concepts
Exercises
Switch the national mix to Share. Roughly what share of generation was coal in 2005, and what is it in the latest year?
Show a hint
Use the table view and divide coal by the total for each year.
Which provinces would face the highest cost of a 2035 clean-grid requirement? Use the map and explain with marginal abatement costs.
Check your reasoning
Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and Nunavut, which rely mostly on fossil generation. Hydro provinces have little left to abate, so their marginal cost is low, while fossil-heavy provinces must replace or retrofit large shares of capacity.
Compare the fall in coal generation (this page) with the fall in electricity-sector emissions (Emissions module). Are they proportional? Why or why not?
Check your reasoning
Not exactly. Some coal was replaced by natural gas, which still emits (about half as much per kWh), and some by wind, solar and nuclear refurbishment returning to service. Demand growth also changes the total.
Design an interprovincial transmission project between a hydro province and a fossil province. Who gains, who pays, and why might it not be built without government involvement?
Check your reasoning
The fossil province gains cleaner, possibly cheaper power; the hydro province gains export revenue. Costs are upfront and large, benefits are spread over decades and partly external (lower national emissions), so private investors under-provide it — a public-good and coordination problem.