Understanding the energy landscape in the Yukon is the key to understanding the challenges, policy implications, and decisions that we often see highlighted in the news. This post is going to provide a brief overview of the energy landscape in the Yukon.

Who runs the Yukon’s electric grid?

Every province and territory has their own legislated regulations for utilities, making each regulatory environment unique. However, there are only a handful of market structures in use. The Yukon’s system is, in many respects, operated like a vertically integrated utility (i.e., there’s only the 2 players involved and there are no other options) where the market is regulated by the Yukon Utility Board. A vertically integrated utility handles everything from generation to transmission to distribution.

ATCO Electric Yukon (ATCO) on the other hand is a privately owned company, part of the ATCO Corporation based in Alberta. ATCO handles much of the distribution portion of the Yukon Integrated System. They operate by purchasing power from YEC for distribution to customers. Additionally, ATCO is the operator of both generation and distribution in the Yukon’s five remote communities.

Who Regulates the Utilities?

The Yukon Electric Grid

The Yukon Integrated System generates electricity predominately from hydroelectric facilities with fossil fuel (diesel and liquid natural gas) generators that supplement generation capacity during periods of peak energy demand and to meet N-1 contingencies. Additionally, there are the isolated grids that primarily rely on diesel generators for their electricity generation.

Click on the image below to view real time data on the Yukon Integrated System

Isolated vs Interconnected Grids

Grid interconnections can provide a variety of advantages to an electric grid. For one, they allow for resource sharing. On the North American Grid these interconnections can also take advantage of varying electricity demand throughout the day, as different regions may experience peak demand at different times. By interconnecting grids, excess power from regions with lower demand can be transferred to regions with higher demand.

For the Yukon Integrated System, the key advantage of interconnection is the ability to connect large generators (e.g., hydro, which is very location specific) to load centers (e.g., Whitehorse or other cities/communities, Minto or other mines/industrial consumers, etc.).

On the North American Grid resource sharing can also allow for emergency assistance in case of natural disasters or equipment failure. However, this is only the case when there are redundancies in the transmission system. The Yukon Integrated System has no redundancy for most of its transmission lines which means rather than being able to rely on resource sharing every community requires its own back-up diesel generator to account for N-1 Contingencies.

Large interconnections can also facilitate the integration of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar. Because wind and solar are not dispatchable (meaning we cannot turn them on with the flick of a switch, they require natural forces) we need to find ways to utilize them that do not affect power reliability and quality. Spreading multiple generation sources across a larger geographical area can provide more predictable and consistent power input. 

Why isn’t the Yukon Connected to the North American Grid?

Canada is a geographically vast country with a relatively small population compared to its landmass. This means that it is not always economical or feasible to connect all areas to the larger grid. These geographical constraints necessitated the need to build smaller grids within Canada such as those in the Yukon.

The Yukon Integrated System is an interconnected system just on a smaller scale than the North American grid.  This means the Yukon Integrated System has some of the same advantages as the North American Grid, but the size and scale of the grid makes it more vulnerable to the challenges of variability and reliability that are introduced to the system when integrating intermittent renewables (energy sources that are not always predictable or available such as wind and solar). Thus, the YIS must be self-sufficient in terms of redundancy and resiliency as it cannot rely on its interconnected neighbours to assist in the event of a natural disaster, equipment failure, or insufficient power generation.

Isolated Communities

There are also five communities in the Yukon that are completely self-reliant and not connected to the Yukon integrated system: Beaver Creek, Burwash Landing / Destruction Bay, Watson Lake, Old Crow, and Swift River. These communities are on completely remote grids.

Electricity on these systems have traditionally been exclusively from diesel generators. This means that these generators run 24/7, 365 days a year. Fuel must be shipped in, sometimes by ice road or plane. However, in recent years there have been several successful renewable energy projects integrated into these isolated grids, primarily in the form of solar or wind, coupled with battery energy storage systems. These isolated grids have none of the advantages of an interconnected system and are completely reliant on the resources in their community.

Contributors

Author: Colleen Hammond
Reviewed By: Jason Zrum and Maureen Charlie