The Local Power program is “a significant opportunity for the U.K.’s community energy and crowdfunding sectors,” says Lisa Ashford, co-CEO of Ethex, an ethical crowdfunding platform, in an email statement. The policy framework and government support “should help to unlock a larger pipeline of investable local power projects, creating more opportunities for communities to directly invest in renewable energy in their own areas.”

Ethex has pledged to work with Great British Energy (the agency responsible for implementing the Local Power Plan) to bring local communities, individual investors and institutional capital together ​​to help leverage ​the billion-pound grant and loan program ​promised by the government.

“However, we want to emphasize that public funding should complement retail investment, not replace it,” Ashford says, adding that public funding can act as “catalytic capital to get more projects off the ground, reduce risk and co-exist with community and retail finance.”

What is investment crowdfunding?

The purpose of the Local Power Plan is to build community energy projects financed with public funding and crowdfunding, a strategy that proponents see as a way to democratize the capital markets. Distinguished from reward- or donation-based crowdfunding, investment-type crowdfunding is offered with the expectation of financial returns through interest, dividends or rising share values.

In some cases, investment crowdfunding is done through community bonds or innovative investment savings accounts as a way for local people to finance a non-profit or civic project. In others, it can enable investors to buy an equity share in a private company, usually as a start-up but sometimes in a more advanced growth stage.

In either case, the investment is typically locked up for a considerable period – usually five years or more – to prevent participating investors from exiting before the project or company matures to a stage in which investors can get their money out.

​​Capital crowd-surge – and slump​​​

Historically, private investments have been restricted to wealthy sophisticated investors or institutions like pensions and venture capital. Starting in 2014, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority began to amend the rules, reducing restrictions and setting specific conditions for crowdfunding purchases. Since then, the domestic market has grown considerably​​. In​​​ ​2024 (the most recent figures), the value of the total U.K. crowdfunding market was US$1.06 billion, including loans and bonds, equity and even donation-type offerings.

​​While loans and bonds are gaining ground, m​​​​​arket growth has tapered off in recent years in the equity segment of investment crowdfunding, which involves buying shares in private firms. In the United Kingdom in 2021, there were 569 equity crowdfunding offers that together raised a total of £773 million. By 2024, this had fallen to 297 deals worth £324 million (about US$414 million in 2024 dollars).

​​​Investment markets of all kinds bubbled in 2021 as hundreds of thousands of individual investors – bored and at home during COVID lockdowns – experimented with new ways to make (and lose) money. Along with meme stocks and crypto ownership, equity crowdfunding soared in 2021 and 2022, buoyed by low interest rates, rising global investment markets and established crowdfunding platforms like Crowdcube and Seedrs (later taken over by U.S.-based Republic).

Since then, rising interest rates, growing international conflicts and the chaos of the Trump administration have made investors more cautious. Inevitable losses from fledgling start-ups and long capital lockup periods also dampened some investor enthusiasm for equity crowdfunding.

​​The ‘hybrid model’ for green growth​ ​​

In contrast, investment-type crowdfunding in environmental, socially responsible and ethical offerings has grown steadily, although incrementally. Social enterprise bonds and share offerings have carried less risk than equity shares in start-up and growth companies. It’s customary for renewable-energy projects, for example, to come with reliable income streams or civic infrastructure projects to be backed by municipal borrowing guarantees. Ethex, Abundance and Triodos UK ethical crowdfunding are among the online platforms specializing in this market and are poised to benefit from the £1 billion Local Power strategy.

As well, crowdfunding platforms focusing on the energy transition are expected to benefit from ​an expected annual growth rate of U.K. climate tech of 21% between now and 2030, although this growth won’t happen directly from the Local Power program.​​​​​​ ​ ​Globally, a​ 2024 report by RMI (formerly Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Institute) states that US$2 trillion will be needed globally to finance the industrial, transportation and infrastructural changes needed to shift the global energy system from fossil fuels to electricity.

The RMI report says this opens new opportunities for crowdfunding, which are already appearing in the United Kingdom, where climate tech is attracting attention from individuals as well as venture and private equity investors. British climate-tech transportation company Sunswap raised £17.3 million in 2024 (US$21.8 million in 2024 dollars), partly from crowdfund investors and partly from venture capitalists. The company has developed a ​​​​groundbreaking ​refrigeration unit for trucks powered by a separate battery and solar ​unit to reduce ​fuel costs and ​carbon dioxide emissions from transport trucks. The Republic crowdfund platform hosted the offer along with support from institutional investors such as Shell Ventures, an arm of the Shell oil and gas giant.

Antoine Beine, co-founder of the France-based climate tech crowdfunding network Keenest, says this so-called hybrid model (including both crowdfund and institutional investors) is becoming the norm in the United Kingdom and Europe. “This is where a democratic dimension of investment may emerge within the private sector, not simply for capital access, but in embedding transparency and public scrutiny around issues such as sovereignty, climate transition, privacy, and ethical practices,” he says in an email.

Ethex’s Ashford says that one of the exciting opportunities offered by the Local Power Plan is the prospect to pool government funding with crowdfunding capital. “If implemented effectively, the Local Power Plan could mark a step change in community power investment by combining public support with people-powered finance to accelerate a more democratic energy transition.”

The government’s aim in the Local Power Plan is to build 1,000 community energy projects. In the process, it could also help to deliver a jolt of popular democracy into the United Kingdom’s capital markets.

Eugene Ellmen writes on sustainable business and finance. He is a former executive director of the Canadian Social Investment Organization (now the Responsible Investment Association).

The post The U.K. has a plan to crowdfund clean energy appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Throughout it all, speculation abounds that an EV tipping point approaches.

New battery-electric vehicle (BEV) registrations in Europe took off in the first quarter of 2026, rising by nearly 30% from a year ago, as the U.S.-Israel war in Iran spiked gas pump prices to levels not seen in years, Reuters reports. BEV registrations (a proxy for sales) jumped more than 50% in March alone.

Pedal to the metal on EV sales

Estimates are that more than 21% of all new cars registered in March in the European Union and EFTA (the European Free Trade Association, whose member countries are Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) were ⁠electric.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s BEV market grew 12.8% in the first three months of 2026, with BEVs accounting for 22.5% of new car sales.

While high gas prices have been a major driver of BEV sales, new  and pre-existing – policy supports also played a role. “Generous government incentives” spurred the 50% year-on-year uptake of EVs in France, The Guardian reports.

That Nordic countries continue to outstrip their southern neighbours in BEV uptake – 98% of all new cars sold in Norway in March were BEVs, “followed by Denmark at 76% and Finland at almost 50%” – owes in part to “higher wages, generous subsidies, and extensive [public] charging infrastructure.”

Gas pump prices appear to be behind Italy’s full-throttle acceleration into the EV market, with that country experiencing a 65% year-on-year increase in EV sales in March.

Gas price concerns are also fuelling EV demand across Asia, with Japan – or rather, Toyota – offering a case in point. Toyota sold almost 3,500 EVs in March, “an increase of 4,117%” over the same month last year, Electrek writes.

EV tipping point ahead

“Rapid innovation, decline in cost and a rise in popularity” are all driving EV sales toward a tipping point “where uptake becomes self-propelling” and EVs “irreversibly replace internal combustion engine vehicles,” write the authors of a study published in early December in Nature Communications.

A combined effort by researchers from the University of Exeter, the University of Macao and the World Bank, the study found that even as the sale of gas-fuelled vehicles began to decline in 2019 (the study period ran 2016 to 2023), EV plus hybrid sales increased exponentially, with the global fleet doubling every 1.5 years. Sales in the European Union doubled every 1.3 years, while China saw EV plus hybrid sales double every year. “Our data and analysis provide evidence that several European markets and China have begun tipping towards EV dominance, although this is not convincingly the case for the U.S.,” the research team writes.

But a degree of uncertainty about the timing of the shift remains, even for strong EV markets. “Once investment is sunk into converting production lines, a return to [internal combustion vehicles] becomes comparatively expensive, irrespective of the oil price,” they write. The “imposition of new tariffs” remains the wildcard, they warn.

All eyes on China

Your average EV battery contains four basic components: the cathode (some combination of metals, often including lithium), the anode (typically graphite), the separator that keeps cathode and anode from touching explosively, and an electrolyte solution. As Bloomberg explains, China corners the market on all four.

It is also leading the charge on battery innovation. China’s latest iteration of its lithium ion phosphate battery now rivals its far more expensive kin, the nickel manganese cobalt battery, in energy density. According to its makers, the lithium ion phosphate battery can recharge “in about the same amount of time as it takes to refuel a gas car.”

China’s battery innovations extend far beyond improving the lithium ion phosphate one, however. Chinese battery-manufacturing giant CATL has just made public “six stunning new battery technology innovations, including an electric vehicle battery with driving range of up to 1,500 kilometres and the third generation of its Shenxing Superfast Charging Battery that it says can charge from 10% to 90% in six minutes and 27 seconds,” Zecar reports.

And China’s pre-eminence doesn’t end with batteries: Momenta (autonomous driving), Huawei (super-rapid-charging EV systems, among other things) and Alibaba (“intelligent cockpits”) are all headquartered there.

Meet the 2026/2027 BMW iX3

Western automakers have lost huge amounts of ground in China as new domestic highfliers like BYD seize market share. Western brands like BMW and Volkswagen held just 32% of the market this year, down from 64% in 2020, the Financial Times reports.

BMW is among those seeking to regain traction in the huge Chinese market, and it is doing so through direct collaboration with its hosts. Enter its BMW iX3, an electric sport-utility vehicle equipped with a CATL battery and the latest technology from Momenta, Huawei and Alibaba.

While Germany’s second-largest auto manufacturer intends to sell the iX3 abroad, it is also laser-focused on the domestic Chinese market. “Developed ‘in China, for China, and with China,’” the iX3 “has been deeply localized for China,” BMW states in a January release.

“Tailored to local traffic conditions and usage scenarios, the system is designed to deliver highly capable driver-assistance functions optimized for complex urban environments, highways, and long-distance travel in China, further enhancing safety, comfort, and driving confidence,” the car manufacturer adds.

Volkswagen – Germany’s largest car manufacturer – is also looking to collaborate with China. VW “plans to launch 50 plug-in hybrid and EV models in China by the end of the decade to rejig its petrol-heavy lineup with vehicles designed and engineered locally as part of its ‘in China for China’ strategy,” the Financial Times reports.

This story was originally published by The Energy Mix. It has been edited to conform with Corporate Knights style. Read the original story here. 

Gaye Taylor is a staff writer for The Energy Mix. She is passionate about showcasing what individuals and communities are doing to advance climate solutions, in Canada and around the world. 

The post EV sales in Europe and Asia soared following the start of the war in Iran appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Affordable.

Onshore wind and utility‑scale solar photovoltaic installations are now substantially cheaper than new fossil fuel plants almost everywhere in the world. With voters broadly ranking economic concerns and energy costs above climate, cost is a key part of the new low-carbon lexicon.

Secure.

Renewables rely on international supply chains for set-up, but once installed they use freely available local resources like sunlight, wind and ground-source heat, which makes them less vulnerable to the sorts of market volatility that afflict fossil fuels.

Resilient.

A grid that is dependent on a mix of renewable sources, rather than exclusively on fossil fuels, can better withstand shocks. That’s why Ukraine, for example, has pivoted to wind and solar rather than large power plants to avoid major outages from Russian attacks.

Advanced.

Rather than positioning renewables as climate-positive, the sector is increasingly describing its products as modern, high-tech and cutting edge. Worldwide, renewables have received twice as much investment as other power sources, which increases competition and strengthens.

Efficient.

Combustion technologies also lose most of their fuel energy as heat, converting only about 35% to 60% into electricity. By contrast, electric motors commonly achieve 80% to 95% efficiency.

Illustrations by Drew Shannon

The post The new language of clean power appeared first on Corporate Knights.

But in 2022, a controlled fusion reaction conducted in a California laboratory produced – for a fraction of a second – net-positive energy, thus turning the dream of endless, carbon-free energy into a possibility. A handful of start-ups intend to capitalize on that possibility, including B.C.-based General Fusion. After more than two decades of research, General Fusion says its “first of a kind” fusion power plant will be generating electricity by 2035.

Venture capital has responded enthusiastically to the new arrivals, with money surging into the space. In 2025, fusion start-ups raised $2.6 billion (all values in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted) according to the Fusion Industry Association.

Earlier this year, General Fusion announced that it will go public as part of an intended merger with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The B.C. company has raised more than $400 million to date, including support from governments in Canada, the United States and Britain. General Fusion was valued at $600 million prior to the transaction; the deal with Spring Valley would provide it with up to $335 million in additional funding.

Fusion is the most exciting form of energy because it is abundant and would mean that everyone would have access to affordable electricity. However, fusion is monumentally difficult to do at a commercial scale.

– Jason Donev, physics professor, University of Calgary

Founded in 2002 by physicist Michel Laberge, the 117-person firm is in the process of developing a commercially viable fusion energy system. Currently, there are no operating commercial-scale nuclear fusion reactors. General Fusion’s chief strategy officer, Megan Wilson, is pumped. “Right now, the market is seeing interest in clean energy, and this has dovetailed with major advancements in fusion,” she says. “This is an exciting time for us.”

Donev echoes Wilson’s observation that there is a heightened sense of urgency in the energy market. Electricity consumption, he notes, had been levelling off worldwide until the introduction of AI and data centres, which have driven a surge in energy demand. The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook for 2025 confirms that anticipated spike, estimating that demand for electricity will grow between 40% and 50% in less than 10 years. The U.S. Department of Energy has predicted that the total energy use from data centres alone will double or even triple by 2028.

The market heats up

Even Trump Media & Technology Group, whose core business until now has been the president’s social media platform Truth Social, is embracing fusion. Last December, the firm revealed it was merging with TAE Technologies, an energy company with plans to begin construction on the first utility-scale fusion power plant this year. The transaction values TAE at approximately $3 billion.

Likewise, Microsoft and Google, billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, and the oil company Chevron have all started investing heavily in fusion energy companies, including TAE.

In France, a multinational coalition is building an enormous fusion reactor called ITER (the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) at an estimated cost of €13 billion ($21 billion Canadian). ITER will use 50 megawatts of heating power to generate 500 megawatts of electricity – theoretically enough to power some 250,000 homes. ITER is tracking to be operational in the late 2030s, although for demonstration purposes only.

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The biggest player in the United States is Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which has raised more than $2 billion since its founding in 2018, more than any other fusion start-up. Upon completion of its demonstration machine, SPARC, Commonwealth says its next machine will generate electricity for paying customers as soon as the early 2030s.

The provincial government of Ontario is getting in on the action as well with a new Centre for Fusion Energy, announced late last year. The federal government and Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. have committed CAD$33 million to the centre, with an additional $19.5 million from the Ontario government and $39 million from fusion start-up Stellarex Group Ltd.

What is nuclear fusion?

For all the buzz, there are more than a few skeptics. And it’s not hard to understand why when you consider the cost and complexity of trying to create a star here on Earth.

Fusion energy is different from the nuclear energy that was developed in the 1940s in which energy is generated by splitting atoms. Fusion energy creates energy by forcing atoms together, specifically very light hydrogen atoms. When hydrogen atoms fuse, they form helium and, in the process, release an immense amount of energy. The sun and stars are essentially giant balls of hydrogen and helium gases. As the atoms merge, they enter a different state of matter: plasma. The high-energy particles that blast out of the plasma are turbulent and highly unstable. “Holding plasma in place is kind of like juggling jello with elastic bands,” Donev says.

Inside the sun, gravity holds the plasma together. In most reactors, immensely powerful magnets or lasers do the work. Lately, fusion power start-ups have been experimenting with cheaper, easier approaches. General Fusion, for instance, uses pistons to hold plasma together, not unlike the pistons in a car engine.

Speaking to The New York Times in 2024, Earl Marmar, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that the latest reactors have yet to generate more energy (in a commercially relevant way) than they consume. “But, you know, good luck. I hope something works soon, for sure.”

Even a giant reactor like ITER has encountered setbacks. Construction on ITER began in 2007 amid lofty declarations that net-positive energy would be produced by about 2020. Since then, ITER has suffered repeated delays, while the estimated cost of $5.45 billion has quadrupled.

“Fusion is the most exciting form of energy because it is abundant and would mean that everyone would have access to affordable electricity,” Donev says. “However, fusion is monumentally difficult to do at a commercial scale. The problem is [that] it takes so much energy to produce, you can’t get energy back – yet.”

So, is fusion the future?

Wilson with General Fusion predicts that fusion energy will be a trillion-dollar market by 2050, and her optimism is shared. Future Markets reports that the fusion energy sector could reach $40 to $80 billion by 2036 and possibly exceed $350 billion by 2050 “if technological milestones are achieved.”

General Fusion is bullish on its practical and cost-effective methods and confident in its timelines.

While Donev doubts that a fusion energy plant will be dispatching energy to consumers within the next 10 years, he espouses the critical role this power source will likely play in the transition to a clean-energy economy. “It’s such a careful balance with fusion, because it is a good-news story,” he says. “But it’s a very long story. Investors who want to do this need to recognize they’re in for a very long game, albeit a potentially very lucrative one.”

Victoria Foote is a writer and editorwho specializes in clean energy and climate.

The post With investment flowing, fusion energy’s long shot has become a gold rush appeared first on Corporate Knights.

By setting ambitious sustainability targets, Canada’s largest companies have created a massive clean-energy opportunity worth billions in investment for wind and solar projects, thousands of new jobs and millions in municipal tax revenues. The catch is that these gains will materialize only in provinces that allow companies to source the renewable power they’ve pledged to use.

We’ve looked into the numbers, and the demand is going to be massive. Canada’s 100 largest publicly traded companies alone will need 7.7 gigawatts of renewable electricity to meet their climate targets between now and 2040. While that may sound like a distant horizon, more than half of that, 3.9. gigawatts, must be secured within the next five years.

These targets are not aspirational slogans; they are tied to audited disclosures and investor expectations, not just public relations. Businesses are securing clean electricity because it makes economic sense. While the demand isn’t spread evenly, it is national in scope, with companies in every region looking for ways to buy renewable power.

If provinces enable corporate PPAs, they won’t just be helping companies check a sustainability box. They’ll be attracting investment, jobs and a wave of new clean-energy projects into their provinces that would otherwise flow elsewhere.

  – Jorden Dye, director, Business Renewables Centre-Canada

The scale of corporate clean-power demand goes far beyond these top 100 companies. Hundreds of other companies across Canada have sustainability commitments coming due, and they face ongoing pressure to drive down emissions. But here’s where Canada’s potential hits a wall: most provinces don’t have the policy frameworks to enable this demand. The mechanism that unlocks corporate renewable-energy investment, power purchase agreements (PPAs), remains unavailable or severely restricted across most of the country.

Barriers to long-term purchase agreements

PPAs, particularly virtual PPAs (vPPAs), are long-term contracts that allow corporations to purchase renewable energy directly from developers. These agreements provide price certainty for buyers while giving developers the financial backing needed to build projects. Critically, vPPAs often enable developers to build larger facilities than the corporate contract alone requires, feeding additional clean power into the provincial grid and benefiting all ratepayers.

Currently, only three provinces – Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia – have functional frameworks for corporate renewable-energy procurement, and even these are incomplete.

Alberta, once the country’s renewable-energy success story with 3.7 gigawatts of capacity contracted through vPPAs since 2019 – spurring $7.5 billion in private investment, creating more than 7,000 jobs and generating $54 million in municipal tax revenue in 2024 – has seen its momentum collapse.

Following a seven-month moratorium in 2023 and new restrictive regulations in 2024, only 58 megawatts of new deals have been announced in 2024 and 2025, a 98% drop from previous years. Alberta’s competitiveness has eroded just as other provinces begin to open their markets.

Ontario has launched a small, limited pilot for corporate procurement but lacks the open, competitive framework needed to meet the 4.2 gigawatts of demand identified – more than half of Canada’s total. The remaining provinces and territories offer no practical pathways at all, leaving companies operating there unable to meet their climate goals locally despite a clear willingness to invest.

Better ways to procure power

This self-imposed barrier needs to be broken down, and we have the models to do it. From vPPA options to green choice programs, provinces can look to each other and U.S. jurisdictions that have successfully implemented corporate procurement programs. The models are there, and the success speaks for itself. In the United States, 40% of all new renewable-energy capacity between 2015 and 2025 was developed through corporate procurement.

The takeaway for policymakers is simple: Canada’s businesses are ready to build, and the scale rivals past nation-building projects like railways and pipelines. They want to buy clean electricity in the places where they operate, anchoring long-term investment and jobs in Canadian communities. The only question is whether provincial governments will clear the path or stand in the way. Corporate Canada is already doing the work of nation-building; governments just need to let it happen.

This is not a niche environmental agenda. It is a national economic opportunity. If provinces enable corporate PPAs, they won’t just be helping companies check a sustainability box. They’ll be attracting investment, jobs and a wave of new clean-energy projects into their provinces that would otherwise flow elsewhere. With 7.7 gigawatts of renewable-energy demand over the next 15 years, most of it by 2030, the demand is here, and the clock is ticking.

Jorden Dye is the director of the Business Renewables Centre-Canada, which helps businesses looking to procure renewable energy.

The post Canada can quickly unlock much more corporate investment in renewables appeared first on Corporate Knights.

This story was originally published by Canary Media. It has been edited to conform with Corporate Knights style.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems just raised $863 million in additional funding as the company works to achieve the decades-old dream of commercializing nuclear fusion.

The post Investment in fusion energy is spiking appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The convergence of this moment and your leadership gives us a rare chance to break free from the status quo. We cannot let this golden opportunity to make Canada a beacon for the world slip through our fingers. 

Like a championship hockey team, Team Canada Inc. has all the right ingredients – talent, capital and resources – to win big on the global stage. 

As Canada’s head coach, we’re counting on you to channel the wisdom and boldness of our hockey legends, making the tough calls so we can finally deliver on Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s century-old promise that the 20th century would be the century of Canada. That can be true for the century we’re in now, if we avoid getting stuck in the past with outdated technology. 

Where do we play? Fossil fuels are fading, even as their lobbyists grow louder, while clean industries — renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, clean AI, electrification and modular construction – are rising with unstoppable momentum.

In electro-economics, the more you build, the cheaper it gets; in petro-economics, the more you extract, the higher the cost. Do we invest in the future or cling to the past? Like the Great One, we need to skate to where the puck is going. 

Who do we play with? Will we keep relying on a single, increasingly unreliable trading partner for three-quarters of our exports? Or will we reach for opportunity by diversifying with traditional allies and markets like China and India, where nearly 40% of global growth will occur by 2050? It’s time for some bold deal-making to set up more productive games with our rivals in the spirit of Alan Eagleson’s 1972 hockey Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union. 

Who owns Team Canada Inc.? Do we settle for branch-plant status and domestic oligopolies, or do we become masters in our own house – with an inclusive wealth fund, stronger support for co-ops and employee ownership, and a strategy to scale Canadian champions? Denmark, with just six million people, is home to global leaders in cleantech, shipping, beer and pharma. We’re not too small or too poor – our AAA credit rating and $14 trillion in institutional capital say otherwise. Let’s play with our elbows up like the legendary Gordie Howe. 

How do we stop scoring on ourselves? Our slow-moving bureaucracy and risk aversion have stalled $89 billion in clean economy funds and cost us billions more in trade barriers, red tape, wildfires and fragmented energy systems. It’s time to move fast, break the right things and unite as one economy – not 13 – while ensuring that Indigenous communities have real equity in our future. We can’t afford to put Steve Smith (who scored the most infamous goal on his own net in the 1986 Smythe Division final) on the ice.  

How do we keep our skills sharp? Denmark invests 1.7% of GDP in active labour market policies – six times more than Canada – helping workers retool for the jobs of tomorrow. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development puts us near the bottom of advanced economies. Are we ready to invest in our people and win, just as Scotty Bowman always did with his teams? 

Let’s seize this chance and play to win – because the 21st century can still be Canada’s century, if we have the courage to skate hard to where the puck is going, pass boldly and shoot for the stars.

Toby Heaps is co-founder and publisher of Corporate Knights. 

The post Publisher’s Note: Canada needs to play to win appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The research by Abacus Data found that, assuming both were priorities, 67% of Canadians “would generally favour clean energy projects such as critical minerals, renewable power and transmission, and energy storage,” Clean Energy Canada explains. “The remaining 33% would prefer conventional fossil fuel projects like oil and gas, including [liquefied natural gas] development.”

Among the 2,585 Canadians who took part in an online panel between June 2 and 5, 87% said clean energy will be “very” or “pretty” important, and 83% said the same of fossil fuels. Some 45% said clean energy would be “very” important, compared to 36% for fossil fuels.

The research uncovered overwhelming support – a margin of 76% to 24% – for shifting Canadian climate policy to align more with Europe, rather than the United States. And “as Canadians face another summer of wildfires, support for continued climate action remains extremely strong, with only 14% of Canadians saying the federal government should do less to combat climate change and transition the country to clean energy,” Clean Energy Canada writes.

But while a large plurality of respondents, 44%, wanted Canada to do more on climate, 41% said governments are doing about the right amount. The European Union is currently far ahead of Canada in its efforts to drive down climate pollution and shift to renewable energy technologies, and analysts have pointed out that Canada would be by far the biggest per capita emitter in any new trade relationship with the EU.

The Abacus research also found that Canadians support building new homes with lower-carbon, sustainable materials by a margin of 64% to 15%, while 70% definitely or likely want to see EV hookups and heat pumps in new homes as long as the cost is minimal.

“It’s easy to wonder whether views on important issues have shifted as Trump, tariffs, and national security dominate headlines and the worried minds of Canadians,” Trevor Melanson, Clean Energy Canada’s director of communications, said in an online statement. “And yet the consensus on climate action and the transition to clean energy remains overwhelmingly positive. What’s more, as Canada forges stronger trade relationships with the likes of Europe and Asia, we may see a growing economic and values alignment with jurisdictions that are all-in on clean energy.”

This article was first published in The Energy Mix. It has been edited to conform with Corporate Knights style. Read the original article here. 

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If we don’t get to a much stronger place soon, we may cease to be a nation-state at all.

We’ve long been aware of the risks of the elephant next door. We have risen to the challenge when called for, before and after Confederation. 

When the United States invaded Upper Canada in 1812, under the leadership of British Major-General Robert Ross, we literally ate their dinner (President Madison fled, leaving an untouched feast) and burned the White House down.

The boldest play we can make is to forge a soup-to-nuts clean energy superpower, from critical minerals and batteries to smart grids, financial wizardry and engineering know-how.

After Confederation, to unite Canada and thwart U.S. expansionism, Sir John A. Macdonald, along with a team of builders and financial wizards, led the most consequential nation-building project in our history, pounding in the last spike of the 4,700-kilometre Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885.

The elephant and the polar bear

Here we are in 2025 with the elephant trumpeting again. Trudeau Sr. likened us to a mouse in this dynamic, but by relative weight – and I hope attitude – we are more of a polar bear. What would a polar bear do? According to Inuit lore, polar bears are seen as powerful spiritual beings embodying strength, resilience and adaptability. A polar bear knows the full meaning of “We the North,” and a polar bear never rolls over (unless it’s playing or cleaning itself). 

How do we build a stronger Canada? It starts with a stronger economy.

We can take inspiration from some of our winter sport heroes. We need to “skate to where the puck is going.” That means investing where fortunes are rising, not falling. With apologies to Harold Innis, the famed political economist, hewing wood and drawing water (and, soon, drilling for oil ) is not where the money is. The clean energy economy is the locomotive for 21st-century growth. As measured by Corporate Knights and others, it is growing twice as fast as the rest of the economy and is now the dominant driver of economic growth across sectors and the world. 

The boldest play we can make is to forge a soup-to-nuts clean energy superpower, from critical minerals and batteries to smart grids, financial wizardry and engineering know-how. 

We have all the ingredients to do this. The only thing missing is leadership.

We have a need for speed

It’s one thing to say we are going to be a clean energy superpower; it’s quite another to make it happen. The goons from the status quo industries have been going into the corner and coming out with the puck for a long time: case in point, 10 years after Trudeau was elected on a promise to price pollution, the biggest oil companies are still polluting for free. That’s why we need to keep our elbows up, to make sure we don’t lose the puck.

Markets and geopolitics are moving too fast for us to go slow. No time for Royal commissions or expert panels. We have a need for speed. Like the masters of metamorphosis featured on p. 32, we need to dare to push the limits of what is possible, faster than we have ever gone before. 

In the spirit of friendlier times with our neighbour, we can take a page out of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first 100 days, where he passed 15 major bills and delinked the dollar from the gold standard, laying the way for major public investments (in the order of 6% of GDP for six years) that saved the United States from the Depression. 

Let us hope the next leader of our land brings the resilient spirit of a polar bear, the vision of the Great One (on the ice, not off), the sharp elbows of Mr. Hockey and the daring speed of the Crazy Canucks. Mix all that with a little financial wizardry, and we will make magic happen.

Toby Heaps is the co-founder, publisher and CEO of Corporate Knights. 

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The vision of a decarbonized, interconnected, resilient national power grid is at the heart of recent analysis by Corporate Knights’ Climate Dollars project that sets out an ambitious plan for a zero-emission economy by 2050, all while securing and revitalizing the local economies that are the cornerstone of our national sovereignty.

It is a grid that we have only recently imagined, one based on millions of distributed, renewable generators rather than dozens of central power plants. It requires capital investments in solar, wind and storage technologies that total $700 billion over the next 25 years, in addition to the roughly equal amount of capital needed to electrify the buildings and vehicles. The capital cost for the grid investments averages $28 billion per year from now until 2050 and is below current investment level in the electric power sector in Canada, which totalled $32 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $34.5 billion this year.

But while this total investment is well within the capacity of Canadian capital spending, realizing such a sustainable outcome requires that government make the right choices now, that both new and existing buildings are fossil fuel–free, that we develop vehicle-to-grid infrastructure that feeds the energy of EV batteries back into our grid, and that we stop building new fossil and nuclear plants.

The renewable grid builds on our current hydroelectric base and leans into the wind and solar resources that Canada has in abundance, and that are leading global growth in electricity generation investment.

• Sized to provide for the growth in electrification of buildings and vehicles, the scenario includes up to 100,000 wind turbines and 100 million solar panels to be built across Canada over the next 25 years.
• The batteries in tens of millions of interconnected electric vehicles will provide the energy storage to ensure a reliable grid, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. By 2050, vehicle-to-grid technology cuts the cost of the national grid by half – even after putting money in vehicle owners’ pockets by compensating them for access to their batteries.

Every part of the Climate Dollars scenario is built on technologies that are proven, affordable and beginning to scale up. Getting it done will depend on government leadership in clearing regulatory and other barriers to rapid action, and an accelerated response from businesses and investors who see opportunities to prosper generated by a positive, pragmatic response to the climate emergency.

The Trans-Canada Transmission Link

At the heart of the transition scenario is what we are calling the Trans-Canada Transmission Link, a bold nation-building project as central to our future as the Trans-Canada Railway and Highway were to our past. It’s a coast-to-coast, high-voltage DC transmission line that will foster interprovincial trade in electricity to bring down the cost of decarbonization while supporting broad distribution of the benefits of the hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in renewable electricity through the coming transition.

A Trans-Canada Transmission Link will also be a more efficient means of transporting energy across the country than a new pipeline. As the energy transition unfolds, the link could transport gas-powered electricity generated in Alberta to Eastern Canada faster than pushing the gas across the country in a pipeline, with an important added benefit: the Trans-Canada Transmission Link will not be obsolete after the transition to zero-carbon sources is complete. The link will give each province access to electricity-generating capacity in any of the others, with different parts of the country using and consuming power at different times of day. With the grid itself as a coordinating point, Manitoba sunshine will be able to power the dinner-hour peak in Halifax, while Quebec’s summer winds supply morning electricity for office towers in Calgary and Edmonton.

The Trans-Canada Transmission Link is a bold nation-building project as central to our future as the Trans-Canada Railway and Highway were to our past.

A Canada-wide link also cuts the total amount of renewable generation the country will need. Rather than every province building its own carbon-free grid independently, a national link is stronger, and smarter, together. It will cost $30 to $40 billion to build, including the converter stations in each province, and deliver two to three times that much in cost savings.

The interprovincial transactions along the Trans-Canada Transmission Link will be a win for all provinces, whether they’re buying or selling electricity. The prospect of stable, new domestic markets will increase the incentive for hydropower-rich Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia to develop their wind resources. And the easy availability of electrons through an east–west grid will help out provinces like Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario that will be hard pressed to independently develop all the renewable generation they need to decarbonize their economies by 2050.

The battery under your hood

Short-term energy storage, operating every hour of every day of the year, is the key to the renewable grid, delivering the flexibility to match the peaks and valleys of intermittent electricity supply with constantly fluctuating demand. In the Climate Dollars scenario, the battery under the hood of your electric vehicle is the most affordable way to deliver that reliability.

In the short to medium term, large, utility-scale batteries that can store 240,000 kilowatt-hours or more will support the transition to renewable electricity, and there will likely be a longer-term role for some of these large, more expensive batteries. In the longer run, however, the key to bringing down the cost of emissions-free electricity is to bring down the cost of storage.

In the Climate Dollars scenario, we tap into the millions of much smaller EV batteries that will be available from the electrification of road transport. The cars are generally parked 95% of the time and on any given day use only 10 to 20% of their battery capacity. With relatively inexpensive vehicle-to-grid (V2G) infrastructure that enables the cars to charge at times of day when solar electricity is abundant and partially discharge in the evening and overnight, the otherwise idle batteries become a key enabling technology for the transition to renewable electricity.

Utility and fleet managers in Canada and around the world are beginning to adopt V2G technology for load management and cost savings. In the Climate Dollars scenario, vehicle owners decide , but V2G becomes the universal way in which personal electric vehicles connect to the grid. With utility batteries costing more than $1,000 per kilowatt, access to EV batteries could be worth $10,000 to $20,000 per vehicle battery. In the Climate Dollars scenario, V2G cuts the cost of grid decarbonization in half, saving hundreds of billions of dollars – not because the car batteries are that much cheaper, but because they’re already embedded in the cost of the cars. Those vehicles, in turn, become more affordable to buy if their owners can count on revenue from a V2G contract.

Heat pumps and winter peak electricity consumption

In the Climate Dollars scenario, air-source and ground-source heat pumps are the key to eliminating fossil fuel consumption in residential and commercial buildings.

In most provinces, fossil fuels – mainly natural gas – provide most building space and water heating, and the conversion of millions of gas-heated buildings to heat pumps will result in strong growth in winter peak consumption of electricity. Fortunately, because the heat pumps are so efficient – providing anywhere from two to four units of heat for every kilowatt-hour of electricity they consume – it will require that much less energy to heat the buildings with heat pumps than it currently takes to heat them with gas.

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Nevertheless, there are millions of buildings to be converted, and the resulting growth in winter peak consumption of electricity is the defining factor in the capital investment required to establish and maintain a renewable, emission-free electricity supply.

Ensuring that all new buildings are built to high efficiency standards and retrofitting existing buildings for higher levels of efficiency can make a big difference in their peak consumption – more than $100 billion in capital savings if the retrofits are deep enough. There is also a large amount of industrial electricity consumption that occurs during the winter peak, and which could be responsive to seasonal load management and “time of year” pricing – for example, a manufacturing plant could scale back production from Christmas to the middle of February, and make it up in the spring. Here, again, the capital savings to the electricity system could add up to tens of billions of dollars.

Inevitably, though, any future grid that supplies an electrified building sector in a temperate climate will have a winter peak – in the Climate Dollars scenario, electricity consumption is higher in winter in every province. This will result in idle solar and wind capacity in the spring and the fall, idle capacity that will be available at very low cost to innovators who can devise applications for it.

Canada’s energy-supply mix in 2050

In the Climate Dollars scenario, oil and gas demand falls to nearly zero by 2050. The fuels we use for heating and cooling, vehicles, industry and agriculture are replaced by electricity, and that electricity is generated predominantly from wind, hydropower and solar.

• Wind turbines total 178 gigawatts of installed capacity with a national grid in place to balance demand, 235 GW without.
• With no new large hydropower dams in the scenario beyond projects that are already committed, installed hydro capacity remains steady at about 80 GW.
• Solar panels come in at just over 50 GW, 36.4 from utility-scale solar farms and 14 from rooftops in every part of the country.
• Total electricity end use increases from less than 600 to more than 1,000 terawatt-hours per year, including about 550 TWh in homes and commercial buildings, 150 TWh from road transport and nearly 330 TWh from industry and agriculture.

To chart a course to this renewable, decarbonized future, Climate Dollars modelled each of the separate, provincial grids that Canadians have relied on for nearly a century. The scenario includes detailed electricity supply and demand projections for most individual provinces, with an integrated analysis of the electricity supply for New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Highlights include:

• modest overall growth in energy and peak electricity demand in British Columbia and Quebec, with hydropower readily available and today’s heavy use of electric resistance heating creating opportunities to boost efficiency through heat pump conversions;
• increased reliance on wind resources in Alberta and Saskatchewan that are close to population centres and play a central role in decarbonizing the grid;
• more than a doubling of electricity consumption in Alberta and Ontario, with rising peak consumption in Ontario underscoring the opportunity to boost efficiency with cold-climate heat pumps and building retrofits;
• greater reliance on ground-source heat pumps in the three Prairie provinces;
• low overall energy consumption in Newfoundland and Labrador as the fossil fuel industry winds down, creating an opportunity for the province’s abundant hydropower resources to attract energy-intensive industries; and
• modest electricity demand growth in the Maritime provinces, where electric heating is already quite prevalent and the rise in peak demand is not as sharp as elsewhere.

Building new nuclear capacity increases the overall cost of decarbonization. A high-nuclear future in Ontario that includes proposed new plants at Bruce and Wesleyville costs $55 billion more than Climate Dollars’ lower-cost reference scenario, which includes only the spending already committed to rebuild old reactors.

Corporate Knights will release the full Climate Dollars analysis April 24, during Earth Week.

Corporate Knights is able to carry out this research thanks to support from the McConnell Foundation, the Trottier Family Foundation, the Chisholm Thomson Family Foundation and the Graham Boeckh Foundation.

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