Emera To Phase Out Coal By 2040, Targets Net-Zero Carbon Emissions By 2050
HALIFAX — Emera Inc., the company that owns Nova Scotia Power, unveiled a new climate commitment Tuesday that would see it phase out all coal by 2040 and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The company made the announcement during its quarterly earnings call, where president and CEO Scott Balfour said decarbonization will be a key priority for Emera in the coming decades.
Emera owns Nova Scotia Power, along with several other power companies in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean.
The company is promising to reduce its coal usage by 80 percent by 2023. By 2025, it says it will reduce its carbon emissions by 55 percent.
The company also says it will retire all its coal power plants “no later than 2040” and that by that year it will have reduced its carbon emissions by 80 percent.
After those goals are met, the company says it wants to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Emera’s targets are all benchmarked against its 2005 coal use and carbon emissions. So far, since 2005, Emera has reduced its CO2 emissions by 39 percent and its coal use by 68 percent.
Balfour says Emera plans to reach its targets by investing in emerging technologies like battery storage, and “working constructively” with regulators and policymakers.
He believes the company can reach its 80-percent CO2 emission reduction using technologies that already exist.
“We’re not looking for miracles to appear,” he said. “We have a path there, we can see the path, we’re on a track, and we can clearly see how that gets achieved.”
The government of Nova Scotia has told Emera it needs to get to 40 percent renewable energy in Nova Scotia by 2022 and the utility is on track to hit those targets.
Most of the renewable energy Nova Scotia Power is counting on to meet its goals in the province won’t be generated here. Instead, it will be imported from the yet-to-be-completed Muskrat Falls hydroelectricity project in Labrador
In other markets, Emera has invested in generating its own renewable power. In Florida, where Emera does a large chunk of its business, the company recently completed a massive, 600-megawatt solar array.
While Balfour says he’s confident these types of projects will bring Emera most of the way to net-zero carbon emissions, talking the finals steps won’t be as straightforward.
“The truth is that step from 80 percent carbon reduction to net zero, that’s not as clear, at least not without affecting affordability for customers,” Balfour said.
He said more advancement in emerging technologies will likely have to happen—and those technologies will also have to get cheaper—to make Emera’s 2050 goal a reality.
One thing Balfour said could have a significant impact on Emera’s targets, however, is the commercialization of the so-called “Atlantic Loop.”
Although specifics are still somewhat hazy, the Atlantic Loop is a project that would see transmission lines built to help better circulate renewable energy between the Atlantic provinces.
In September, the federal government pledged millions of dollars to begin preliminary prep work for the project “to help some proponents complete engineering assessments, community engagement, and environmental and regulatory studies.”
Balfour said the project is still a long way off but that Emera is “encouraged by the momentum we seem to be building with this.”
He said he would like to be able to talk about the project with “more clarity” around the third quarter but that it has the potential to slash ten years off Emera’s timeline for abandoning coal.
Trevor Nichols is a staff writer with Huddle in Halifax. Send him an e-mail with your story suggestions: [email protected].