According to a new energy outlook by the Canada Energy Regulator (CER), heightened electricity demand and swift renewables growth may reshape the energy landscape domestically, while a possible boost in natural gas and oil production may fortify Canada’s performance globally.
“Electricity is poised to play a much larger role, natural gas outcomes are shaped by LNG, and crude oil trade remains closely tied to the U.S. if pipeline usage is much like today’s,” said Darren Christie, the CER’s chief economist, in a news release.
The new report – titled “Canada’s Energy Future 2026: Energy Supply and Demand Projections to 2050” – goes over four long‑term scenarios for the nation’s energy system:
- current measures
- higher
- lower
- Canada net‑zero
Around the baseline in the current measures scenario, the higher and lower scenarios lay out a range, while the net‑zero scenario offers a potential pathway to net-zero emissions by 2050.
“The results remind us that Canada’s energy future isn’t fixed,” Christie said in the CER’s news release.
Electricity
According to the CER’s new energy outlook, electricity has increasingly influenced how Canadians power their lives. In every scenario, demand will rise as residences, industries, and artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies increasingly depend on the grid.
By 2050, generation will grow between 30 percent and over 50 percent of the present levels, with more than 96 percent coming from non- or low-emitting sources.
In all scenarios, interprovincial electricity flows will more than double, which means that the interprovincial electricity trade will increasingly play a role in balancing supply and demand.
Fossil fuels
Per CER’s new report, in most scenarios, Ontario and Quebec will keep relying on crude oil and natural gas produced by or transported through the US under the present pipeline configurations.
In the net-zero scenario, Central Canada may see regional energy self-sufficiency improve, with decreased fossil fuel consumption and increased utilization of domestically produced resources such as electricity and hydrogen.
Natural gas
According to the CER’s energy outlook, over the next 25 years in all scenarios, natural gas production will accelerate. Production will be between 21 and 32 billion cubic feet daily (Bcf/d) by 2050, up from about 19 Bcf/d in 2025.
The CER identified liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a viable pathway for expanding Canada’s energy trade beyond North America. How much production will grow and whether Canada will reach markets beyond the US will depend on future LNG export capacity.
By 2050, Canada will see approximately a quarter of all the country’s gas production linked to LNG exports.
Crude oil
The new report offered a more mixed outlook for crude oil in the long term. By 2050, production will range from a 12 percent decrease to an 18 percent increase, depending on global prices and other factors.
In the higher scenario for production, Canada will keep sending the US most of its oil exports if it continues using the pipeline infrastructure it does at present, given that production shifts on their own will not substantially alter longtime export trends.
GHG
According to the CER’s energy outlook, as the nation’s energy system continues changing, across all scenarios, national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will decrease due to a cleaner electricity grid and reduced emissions in most economic sectors.
However, around 2035, emissions will stabilize under the present policies. To attain net zero by 2050, the CER stressed that Canada would require additional climate action and an economy-wide transformation toward low-carbon technologies.