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Originally Posted by esquire
I was in the same boat. This caught me by surprise as I have never heard of the change.
To OTA's earlier point, Manitoba Hydro's playbook has long been based on reducing domestic consumption so that the power can be exported out of Manitoba at higher rates. That said, it was never totally clear to me why more dams have been built in recent years including Keeyask if Manitoba already has more electrical generating capacity than it needs?
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The excess is very temporary in the grand scheme of things. Even hopeful forecasts for MH put us at domestic demand using almost all of the generating capacity existing today including Keeyask by the end of the 2030's, and that didn't factor in electric vehicles nor years like 2021 with 30+ being the normal July temp. So realistically we can bump those estimates up a few years into the next 15 years.
Chances are quite high that we will be using decommissioned gas plants or building nuclear plants to meet demand or we will have to rapidly adjust to using far less power. It takes years to build infrastructure, which is why we have the dams a bit early. Better early than late, ask South Africa. Hard to say if further dams will be built but they also might be needed to sustain agriculture in the interlake.
It's not a crisis but in terms of our economy and basic needs (heat, AC) we need a government and agencies they are unduly influencing to have a plan for power because we don't have long to get that plan moving really. Wind, nuclear, maybe some solar, we need to figure out how we generate what we need.