CEBC Members and Friends,
We are pleased to share that our Senior Government Relations Advisor, Jack Magnus, attended the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) Summit this week on behalf of CEBC. There, he engaged with legislators and public servants from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Washington, and other PNWER provinces and states about how the region can collaborate to accelerate clean energy development and electrification. Jack also enjoyed connecting with CEBC’s valued members, including Innergex and Invenergy.
CEBC is proud that our Board Chair, Colleen Giroux-Schmidt, spoke on day two of the summit, participating in a panel on “Innovative Strategies and Climate Solutions for Achieving the Energy Transition.”
Here are some key takeaways from her remarks:
“The biggest opportunity we see for innovation to enable the energy transition today is not in technology. It’s in policy reform. When we think about what the barriers are to getting new assets into the grid fast, it’s things like permitting timelines, interconnection processes, and utility approvals. We have a huge opportunity to work backwards from the end goal, which is getting more emissions-free, cost effective, safe, and reliable energy into the grid faster. This might require us to re-evaluate some of our policy objectives.”
“It is critical that we re-invest in both existing transmission and build out new transmission at the utility scale while increasing distribution in neighborhoods … There’s no transition without transmission, and I think we need to stay laser focused on that.”
“To legislators: do not be afraid of building too much. I don’t think it’s possible with the amount of demand that is out there right now. It’s time to go big. We can build and economic development will come.”
“We must take a thoughtful look at why our permitting and transmission approval interconnection processes take so long and ask what is really important. What components of biodiversity, socioeconomic, and technical values should we prioritize? Then we can streamline and focus review processes on those things that are most important, so that clean infrastructure can get built quickly.”
