Developing climate resilience is one of the most pressing mandates for the global community in the face of the climate crisis. Canada, as a signatory of the Paris Agreement, has committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and to reducing its emissions by 40-45% from 2005 levels by 2030. These ambitious targets require significant transformations in various sectors of the economy, one of which is the electricity sector – the focus of this project.
Building on the work of the Canada Energy Regulator (CER), we sought to develop our own models to examine the implications of Canada’s commitments for its electricity sector. This is done firstly using a base model with a multi-objective mixed integer programming (MIP) approach, then through an additional model centred on a goal programming (GP) approach. The base model allows us to find an optimal solution satisfying our specified objectives and constraints, while the GP model enables us to explore the trade-offs and compromises among the objectives when they are conflicting or infeasible. Through the MIP formulation, we sketch out a roadmap of electricity generation and technology investment decisions to get as near as possible to Canada’s net-zero emissions targets for the sector – given exclusion of carbon sequestration from the model. This is done while considering mandates such as minimizing costs and ensuring reliable energy supply. Through the GP formulation, we assess the broader feasibility of emissions, energy generation, energy capacity, and capital cost goals over the same time period and subject to the same reliability mandates.
