Editorial
Initiatives to address climate change continue to permeate developments in energy regulation, with significant implications for both regulators and the industries they regulate[…]
Recent
The Managing Editors gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Bennett Jones in the production of this Issue of Energy Regulation Quarterly.
Comments
Canada Energy Regulator Denies NGTL Abandonment Application1
On May 20, 2020, the Commission of the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) denied an application by NOVA Gas Transmission Ltd. (NGTL) for leave to abandon facilities that are part of NGTL’s extensive system of pipeline and facilities in Alberta and British Columbia[…]
Comments
Manitoba Hydro v Manitoba Public Utilities Board: Reduced Rates for Indigenous Peoples Overruled
In June 2020, the Court of Appeal of Manitoba released its decision in Manitoba (Hydro-Electric Board) v Manitoba (Public Utilities Board)[1] and overturned a utility board directive creating a special rate class for on-reserve First Nations in Manitoba[…]
Comments
Resource Projects and the Honour of the Crown
This case comment considers two decisions. The first is the Alberta Court of Appeal’s decision in Fort McKay First Nation v Prosper Petroleum Ltd,[1] issued April 24, 2020, finding that the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) improperly failed to consider the honour of the Crown separate from the duty to consult on Prosper’s Rigel Oil Sands Project[…]
Articles
US Energy Mergers: Is “No Harm” the Right Test?
In earlier articles and essays I explained that the sales of public franchises for private gain, undisciplined by effective competition, produced a concentrated, complicated industry no one intended. Repeated 80 times over 30 years, electricity mergers have wasted economic resources, diverted value from customers to shareholders, weakened competitive forces and intensified intra-corporate conflict. Let’s start with economic waste[…]
Articles
The Fort McMurray Wildfire Cases: Life After Stores Block
In October, 2019 the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC or Commission) issued two decisions addressing requests by ATCO Electric Ltd. (AEL) for recovery of the undepreciated costs of assets damaged or destroyed in the 2016 wildfires in Alberta. One decision was in AEL’s 2018–19 Transmission General Tariff Application (GTA)[…]
Articles
The New NAFTA and Canadian Energy Regulators
On July 1, 2020 the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA came to an end. After 24 years, NAFTA was replaced by a new agreement called the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement.[2] The main impact as far as the energy sector is concerned was elimination of the famous Chapter 11 dispute resolution provision[…]
Articles
The Future of Gas Utilities in a Low Carbon World: Canada’s First Public Utility-Administered Green Innovation Fund
Natural gas distributors in Canada are under increasing pressure to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Policies at all levels of government impose ambitious GHG emission reduction targets that directly call for reduced use of natural gas. For example, the CleanBC Plan legislates a 40 per cent reduction over the next decade, and encourages electrification[…]
Editorials
EDITORIAL
Natural gas plays a central role in various initiatives aimed at moving towards reducing carbon emissions. That role, however, sometimes appears inconsistent, indeed self-contradictory. On the one hand, as the cleanest-burning, lowest carbon-emitting of the hydrocarbon fuels, wider use of natural gas is often promoted as a “bridging fuel,” particularly to replace the burning of coal[…]