Interest in the topic among regional and provincial leaders is growing, but the road to electrification is not as easy as it seems.
This was one of the main conclusions of this month’s housing meeting in Kuujjuaq, said Nunavik Housing Board director Lupin Daignault.
The majority of the people at the table agreed that we are heading into a wall when it comes to heating, which will represent important costs, he said in a French interview.
We made sure it was mentioned multiple times in the meeting for the elected officials to understand.
The majority of Nunavik’s buildings are heated by oil, which comes with high costs. The main hurdle in changing to electric, Daignault said, is that current Hydro-Quebec infrastructure doesn’t offer the amount of electricity required to support electric heating.
For the time being, fuel is a more efficient and economical energy source than electricity for space and water heating, said Lynn St-Laurent, a spokesperson for Hydro-Quebec, in a French email.
She said the amount of electricity required to heat every home through any Nunavik community’s central generator would take “quadruple the power of the diesel centrals, and triple the quantity of fuel used.”
The prospect of moving to electric heating “is a complex question and will not be solved immediately,” she said, pointing to another challenge: moving every Nunavik community off diesel for its power generation.
Hydro-Quebec is deploying multiple initiatives aimed to reduce diesel dependency.
St-Laurent said further analysis must be made to integrate wind power with other sources, because wind is not a constant, stable source of energy like hydroelectricity.
Inukjuak is one community moving off diesel — it’s partly powered by the Innavik Hydro dam. With that infrastructure in place, Hydro-Quebec was able to create a conversion program to allow heating to be supplied by both electricity and diesel.
According to Tarquti Energy Inc., the leading organization in promoting and supporting clean energy projects in Nunavik communities, 27.7 million litres of diesel is burned each year to keep people warm in the region.
Heating is the most important aspect to address when developing clean energy projects, said Joë Lance, a director with Tarquti.
We designed our project not only to displace the diesel used for electricity production, but also to enable electrical heating in the homes, he said Wednesday during a panel presentation at the Aqsarniit Trade Show and Conference in Ottawa.
Currently, there are two wind projects nearing completion. One three-megawatt wind turbine is expected to be ready for operation in Quaqtaq by 2027 and three wind turbines of the same power in Puvirnituq by 2028.
Those two projects required a $165-million investment, but are estimated to generate $350 million in revenue over 25 years and will displace more than 3.5 million litres of diesel a year.
The excess electricity generated by the windmills can be used to help heat buildings in those communities, Lance said.
Source: Nunatsiaq News
Also read the publication:
World’s First Full-Scale Ship Tunnel To Be Built In Norway
