There's lots of cheap energy under our feet

DEAR EDITOR,

Manitoba Hydro has just completed the Wuskwatim Generating Station (200 megawatts, $1.6-billion cost) and is proposing construction of two additional stations at Keeyask (685 megawatts, $5.6 billion) and Conawapa (1,485 megawatts, $7.8 billion), plus the Bipole III transmission line at cost of over $18 billion. These projects are designed to generate about 2,385 megawatts of power. Based on those numbers, it will cost about $7,700 to deliver one kilowatt of electricity to your home in southern Manitoba. To put that in perspective, a typical hair dryer uses one to 1.5 kilowatts of electricity.

The Public Utilities Board is recommending Manitoba Hydro build relatively low-cost generating stations that take advantage of current low natural-gas prices rather than invest so heavily in building dams in the north.

Both Manitoba Hydro and the PUB are missing an obvious alternative. Why not consider using less electricity in the first place? There are about 127,000 homes in Manitoba that use electric baseboards or electric furnaces for heating. They each draw an average of about 11 kilowatts of power during cold weather or about 1,397 megawatts when they are all running.

Ground-source heat pumps use electricity to extract energy from the ground. They use about two-thirds less power than an electric furnace to deliver the same amount of heat to a home. Since 1980, about 6,000 to 7,000 ground-source heat pump systems have been installed in Manitoba. They work well in this climate -- in the new Manitoba Hydro building downtown and in numerous schools and credit unions around the province.

If a ground-source heat pump were installed in place of the electric furnaces and baseboards, electricity demand would be reduced from 1,397 megawatts to 466 megawatts -- a reduction of 931 megawatts. That's more energy than will be produced by Wuskwatim and Keeyask combined.

A typical residential ground-source heat pump can be installed for about $23,000 in an average home and will reduce electrical demand by about 7.5 kilowatts. That is a cost of about $3,000 per kilowatt compared to the $7,700 per kilowatt to build the dams and power lines that have been proposed.

So, we can reduce our power consumption in Manitoba by replacing electric furnaces with ground-source heat pumps at a cost of about $2.9 billion, or we can let Manitoba Hydro build more dams and power lines to generate the same amount of power at a cost of $10.75 billion.

Each of those 127,000 homeowners would enjoy energy cost savings of almost $800 per year and inject about $101 million per year into the Manitoba economy.

It also means Manitoba Hydro can have the power to sell to Minnesota and Wisconsin with a much smaller investment. Kind of like having your cake and eating it too.

ED LOHRENZ

Winnipeg

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 2, 2012 A11