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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
It's time to approach energy planning in the NWT differently.

That was the main message coming out of a two-and-a-half day round-table conference on energy, held in Yellowknife from Nov. 21 to 23.

More than 120 participants attended, ranging from community leaders to government bureaucrats to private industry members to southern consultants. It was different from other GNWT public consultations in that the policy it aimed to discuss - the 2013 NWT Energy Strategy - has not been created yet. Government officials are instead waiting for the outcomes from the meetings, as well as results from a public survey due on Dec. 15, before drafting the new policy that will shape the GNWT's energy strategy.

"This is a new way of going out to a large group and pulling them together to say, 'What can we do differently?' So, I think it was refreshing in that way," said Floyd Roland, mayor of Inuvik, who participated in the conference. "This is a good process. You're getting a cross-reference from small communities, from industry, from governments and looking at how we do things and how can we do things differently."

Roland, who is no stranger to GNWT consultation practices having served as the territory's premier from 2007 to 2011, said the success or failure of these open talks will be determined by whether the government can turn the feedback into workable goals for the territory.

One of the suggestions that resonated with GNWT bureaucrat Dave Nightingale was the government's need to improve its ability to measure results.

Nightingale, director of energy planning with the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, gave the example of the NWT Energy Report, released in May 2011. This report discussed a number of energy investments that had been made over the previous four years, but there are currently few indicators that measure the success or failure of energy investments, he said.

This sort of common sense solution is what makes the bottom-up approach to energy planning appealing to Nightingale.

"You broaden the scope of the discussion. It's not just bureaucrats talking to other bureaucrats," he said.

Key objectives that came out of the conference include increasing the reliability of power around the territory, reducing the impact on the environment and making energy more affordable. These issues are not new, in fact they are similar to objectives laid out in the 1980 NWT Energy Strategy, said Nightingale. However, what is new is the technology that is available to address these needs.

Renewable energy projects, especially biomass and solar, have been successful in the NWT in recent years. These so-called green technologies continue to come down in price, making them a more viable alternative to traditional fossil fuel energy, said Environment and Natural Resources Minister Michael Miltenberger.

During the opening event for the conference, as Miltenberger unveiled the new solar and biomass strategies. The NWT Solar Strategy aims to displace 10 per cent of diesel electricity generation, primarily by building solar systems capable of carrying up to 20 per cent of the average power load in diesel communities - all within the next five years.

The biomass strategy does not set such an aggressive target, but aims to continue increasing the amount of heat provided by burning wood pellets in the territory.

In 2012, biomass heat will have displaced an estimated 2,404,751 litres of heating fuel, up from 1,374,979 litres of fuel displaced by wood heating in 2010, the year the last biomass strategy was released.

"We're deadly serious on moving forward on these key areas of biomass, solar, hydro and geothermal if we can make it work," said Miltenberger.

One of the main difficulties in providing reliable energy to NWT communities is small populations living in remote communities, each maintaining their own isolated grids, said Roland. For him, the answer is simple: invest in electrical lines that can not only connect communities to one another but will also reach customers in southern Canada.

"We've got to think outside the box and come up with some new plans," said Roland, giving the example of his hometown, Inuvik.

Inuvik residents are currently faced with the imminent depletion of their natural gas supply, which will cause their energy costs to spike in January. One of the more frustrating parts of this energy crisis is the fact that Inuvik sits near abundant natural gas fields. However, the population of the town is too small to make drilling a well economically viable. With the Mackenzie Gas Project in perpetual limbo, a power generation site in or near Inuvik could tap the region's energy potential while also avoiding the potential environmental impact associated with a pipeline.

This system has been used successful all over the world, and it is no secret that power grids in the provinces are in constant need, said Roland.

"We know the market is out there," he said. "We just need to put our energy into tapping into it."

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