Atlantic Canada’s electricity sector is in a period of significant change. Provinces are procuring new wind and solar generation, energy storage is entering the grid, and offshore wind is attracting national and international attention. At the same time, the sector faces real challenges: rising cost pressures, a need for greater policy predictability, and the long-standing question of whether four small, independently managed provinces can collectively unlock the kind of investment Canada needs to become an energy superpower.

To better understand this, Atlantica spoke with Eddie Oldfield, Director of Policy for the Maritimes at the Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA). CanREA is Atlantica’s newest industry alliance partner, joining forces with more than 30 organizations and companies to advance energy literacy and support the growth of Canada’s wind, solar, and storage sector. Below is the in-depth conversation from March 2026.


Please tell us about your role and about CanREA and its members.

I serve as Director of Policy for the Maritimes as part of the Canadian Renewable Energy Association’s policy team. I support CanREA’s industry members through our advocacy work to enable the deployment of wind, solar, and energy storage solutions across the Maritimes and to meet Canada’s energy needs.

CanREA was established in 2020 when the Canadian Wind Energy Association and the Canadian Solar Industries Association united to create one voice for wind energy, solar energy, and energy storage. We work to create the conditions for a modern energy system through stakeholder advocacy and public engagement. We also manage regional networks, host national and regional events, and produce data and research.

Our vision is to ensure wind energy, solar energy, and energy storage play a central role in transforming Canada’s energy mix. CanREA’s 2050 vision explains why Canada needs a powerful boost for wind, solar, and energy storage technologies as we set out on a transformative journey to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Eddie Oldfield - Director of Policy for the Maritimes, Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA)

What does CanREA’s research tell us about the state of the renewables sector in Canada today and the decade ahead?

At the end of 2025, we had approximately 25 gigawatts (GW) of wind, solar, and energy storage installed capacity across Canada*, including nearly 19 GW of wind, more than 5 GW of solar, and close to 1 GW of energy storage. Roughly six per cent of that capacity is in Atlantic Canada. We project that Canada’s total capacity will grow by a third in the next four years and at least double within the next decade.

The fundamentals driving that growth include rising electricity demand, affordability pressures, energy security concerns, decarbonization goals, and the need to build supply quickly. Announcements already total nearly 24 GW of opportunity for wind, solar, and storage over the next 10 years nationally, with projects expected to connect roughly 8 GW of utility-scale capacity to grids by 2029. The total investment represented by this 24 GW pipeline is more than $44 billion.

As the lowest-cost sources of new electricity generation available today, wind and solar will continue to play a central role on the path to net zero. Many studies project that Canada will need to double electricity production to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Decarbonized electricity represents the most cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in transportation, buildings, and industry, and can also support the production of green hydrogen, which is expected to become a cost-effective solution in some applications where electrification is more challenging.

CanREA’s detailed findings are available in the Canada’s Renewable Energy Market Outlook 2025 report, produced in partnership with Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors. The report provides a comprehensive outlook for the wind, solar, and storage markets in Canada, including a national profile and deep dives into five key markets, one of which is Atlantic Canada. A free executive summary is available to download.

*For data related to each province, see Canada Energy Profile

Can you share an overview of where the renewable energy picture in Atlantic Canada stands right now?

Onshore wind capacity is ramping up, and there is a great opportunity to capitalize on existing wind resources in the near future. CanREA is currently tracking more than 1 GW of projects in advanced development across the region, which only has a peak demand of around 8 GW. Each province has its own targets and timelines, but the number of megawatts being procured is steadily increasing:

  • New Brunswick has over 450 MW already contracted under recent procurements, with another 400 MW currently in the works.
  • Nova Scotia has over 568 MW contracted, with another 350 MW expected to be procured later this year.
  • Newfoundland and Labrador has 150 MW of wind power in view.
  • Prince Edward Island has a 10-year energy strategy, which includes policy objectives for more on-island renewable generation and storage.

And all of this does not include wind-to-hydrogen, which represents between 600 and 1,000 MW in Nova Scotia alone, or the offshore wind potential, which could range anywhere between 5 and 40 GW over the long term. The offshore wind opportunity in Nova Scotia, in particular, is exceptional.

There are, of course, many caveats to getting to 40 GW of offshore wind generation. A stable policy environment, Federal investment, strengthened transmission, regional coordination, environmental considerations, species at risk, Indigenous rights—all these things need to come together to achieve even 1 GW of offshore wind in Nova Scotia. But the potential, the renewable resource, exists today. Why not harness that and make Atlantic Canada a have region rather than a have-not region?

For more on the scale of Atlantic Canada’s offshore wind potential, see Atlantica’s recent article drawing on data from Stantec and the Net Zero Atlantic report: “New Data on Atlantic Canada’s Offshore Wind Opportunity.”

Where do you see storage capacity in Atlantic Canada heading over the next 10 years?

Nova Scotia has almost completed building 150 MW of utility-scale storage and is expected to procure more utility-scale storage later this year, which provides the ability to balance variable renewables and meet peak demand on the grid when needed. NB Power has, for the first time, issued a Request for Expressions of Interest for 50 MW of four-hour storage, which might be scaled up to 100 MW. That procurement is still ongoing, and NB Power is expected to procure additional long-duration storage sometime later this year. Prince Edward Island is also looking at the need for capacity, and storage can play a central role there as well. Storage is one of the key components needed at a utility scale to enable and optimize the integration of distributed renewable energy resources on the grid, and I do see it playing a more important role going forward, along with expanding behind-the-meter solar and storage in residential and commercial applications.

It feels like the “push” towards renewable energy generation in North America may be slowing, especially with some programming and rule changes in the United States. Do you think this is the case in Canada?

That’s a fair and important question given what we’re seeing south of the border. But our answer for Canada, specifically for Atlantic Canada, is no. In many ways, the dynamics in the United States are reinforcing the case for Canadian renewables.

Canada needs low-cost, low-emissions, and quick-to-deploy electricity to meet growing domestic demand. Wind, solar, and storage are the most affordable and most rapidly deployed sources of new electricity, and that’s not going to change. They are key to Canada’s energy security, and that argument has never been stronger than it is today.

The tariff situation in the United States also underscores the importance of building Canada’s own clean energy supply chain. Canada’s total wind, solar, and storage installed capacity grew 56 per cent since 2020, and energy storage capacity more than doubled to nearly 1 GW in 2025 and is set to double again in the next two years. The growth trend is upward, not slowing.

Canada has kept a steady policy direction on renewables while the U.S. has shifted course. Do you expect to see more investment coming to Canada as a result?

One hundred per cent. I already see that interest growing. Pretty much every week, I get a phone call from an organization or supplier of wind, solar, or storage solutions looking at the opportunity in Atlantic Canada, specifically. Whether that is driven by what’s happening in the United States or simply by the potential that exists here, there is a lot of interest in foreign direct investment from all around the world, including from firms operating in the U.S.

What keeps that investment flowing is a stable policy environment. We need a consistent regulatory framework across provinces where possible, and more predictability and transparency in how procurements are run. That is what I do day to day, advising governments on how to improve their processes so that projects get built, succeed, and provide good value to ratepayers.

What are the greatest opportunities and challenges for the renewable sector in Atlantic Canada today?

It is an important moment for our sector. There are genuine challenges to navigate, but the fundamentals, demand growth, energy security, and Atlantic Canada’s outstanding resources point towards opportunity.

On the opportunity side, we know that decarbonization is still a critical driver. We know that Canada is looking to become more energy resilient. To provide consumer choice, affordability, and economic growth, we need to look at how to decarbonize our electricity systems most cost-effectively. The ongoing trade uncertainty with the United States has also strengthened the Canadian consensus that domestic clean energy development is an economic and sovereignty priority. Renewables are central to that agenda.

Atlantic Canada has world-class wind resources, and the combination of onshore and offshore wind potential, growing export markets, data centre demand, and industrial decarbonization needs has fundamentally improved the viability of utility-scale wind in this region.

On the challenge side, predictability. Provinces set up policies, plans, targets and timelines, and don’t always hold to them. The industry needs multi-year planning and phased procurements rather than a boom-and-bust cycle so they can plan investments. It also helps keep costs lower for ratepayers.

Another is transparency. Some provinces use binding requests for proposals, others use expressions of interest. Some publish results and pricing, others don’t. The industry is risk-averse and needs to know it is competing on a level playing field.

Permitting. There is no standardization across provinces when it comes to permitting and land access. In some jurisdictions, delays take months rather than weeks, and that adds cost and pressure on project proponents.

Tariffs. CanREA is very concerned that Canada’s 25 per cent tariff on imported steel-derived products, including wind towers, will increase electricity costs for Canadians. Canada has only one domestic wind tower producer. Projects already underway could see their costs balloon unexpectedly, and Atlantic projects are directly affected. We are working with the federal government to expand the remissions framework to include wind towers and steel-derived components used in solar and storage.

Emerging market delays. Green hydrogen remains an important long-term opportunity for Atlantic Canada, but the sector is going through a difficult period of maturation. Securing offtake contracts is hard, but, the sector is seeing promising developments, with the EU committing €200 million matched by the federal government to help establish the wind-to-hydrogen industry in Canada. It’s not all bad news; it’s simply taking longer than expected.

Lastly, social licence. Another challenge developers often face is the idea of “not in my backyard,” or NIMBYism, and this can affect the success of projects. Developers in our membership recognize the importance of obtaining social licence as a critical first step to avoid delays and project failure. This means engaging communities before, during, and after construction about site selection, environmental stewardship, and community benefits. Indigenous participation and equity are equally, if not more, important. Almost every major procurement process in Canada in 2025 had specific criteria around Indigenous participation and ownership. There are currently 118 Indigenous-owned wind, solar, and storage projects in operation in Canada, including in Atlantic Canada, and financing through the Canada Infrastructure Bank is helping to enable that equity participation.

 

Procurement processes are a significant investment of time and money for project developers. What happens when they bid and don’t win, and how do we avoid scaring away potential investors?

Even if a company bids on a procurement and is unsuccessful, what keeps them invested in a region is having a predictable set of multi-year procurements—not all at once. In a province like Nova Scotia, having a 10-year energy plan with targets, timelines, and a steady cadence of procurements every couple of years, as Ontario does with its long-term energy procurements, could give developers a stable environment to plan investments and study potential resources.

The other issue is that Atlantic provinces have always managed their own energy systems independently. There is too little coordinated planning across procurements. Each province sets its own strategies and timelines without necessarily considering what is happening in other jurisdictions, and that creates boom-and-bust effects on the industry. We are a small domestic market, but we have tremendous export potential and outstanding clean energy resources. A more predictable policy environment with a steady stream of procurements would go a long way towards keeping investment in Atlantic Canada.

Can you speak more to the need for regional collaboration in Atlantic Canada’s electricity sector, and what benefits it could bring for project developers and ratepayers?

Historically, the Atlantic provinces have pursued their own energy futures independently, but that is no longer a viable way to meet growing energy demand and electrification needs. It is no longer a question of whether collaboration makes sense in theory; it’s about making sure we are moving in the right direction together.

The case for coordination is practical. It reduces duplication of infrastructure investments, avoids stranded assets, and strengthens the case for federal capital participation. Atlantic Canada has some of the highest energy poverty rates in the country, each province faces major infrastructure investment requirements, and the scale of that investment now exceeds what any one of our small provinces can manage independently. There are also declining system capacity margins, growing reliability risks, and large-scale offshore wind ambitions that will be constrained by transmission export capacity if we do not plan regionally.

Consumers need choice, and to protect low-income Canadians and maintain the competitiveness of Canadian industry, we need to minimize the cost of decarbonizing and expanding electricity production.

“It is no longer a question of whether collaboration makes sense in theory. It is about making sure we are moving in the right direction together as a region – not 10 years from now, not five years from now, but starting today.”

Some coordination is happening. The New Brunswick–Nova Scotia intertie is a concrete example. But we need to go beyond transactional arrangements and take a holistic view of how the system functions, and how decisions in one jurisdiction affect systems in another. The first step I would advocate for is establishing a joint task force to develop a regional integrated resource plan, one that draws on existing utility inputs to identify genuinely regional system pressures, assess the need for energy corridor infrastructure, and explore governance options while respecting provincial jurisdiction.

CanREA is a signatory to An Atlantic Canadian Energy Future, which is a report and call-to-action to Atlantic premiers developed by the Atlantic Energy Collective. The Collective’s report calls on the four provinces to begin integrating long-term energy planning and supports the idea of a regional integrated resource plan. It identifies economic growth opportunities that are more achievable working together than apart, and CanREA is proud to be among many organizations recognizing the urgency of that work.

Each province in Atlantic Canada has its own energy strengths and challenges, some of which are genuinely complementary. The goal is not to erase those differences, but to harness them together.

What is CanREA working on in each Atlantic province, and what is next for the organization?

These are exciting times, especially with the growth expected for wind, solar, and storage across Canada and in Atlantic Canada in particular.

In New Brunswick, the focus is on improving the predictability and transparency of procurement practices for wind, solar and storage, to increase investor confidence. There is also work to be done on net metering and behind-the-meter solar policy, and on developing approaches to procure hybrid systems pairing large-scale battery storage with solar or wind.

In Prince Edward Island, the 10-year energy plan has been released and an implementation strategy is being developed. We have made recommendations on targets for wind, solar, and storage, on procurement and solar policy, and we support bulk transmission development both provincially and interprovincially.

In Nova Scotia, past procurement rounds produced lessons learned, and improvements are now being made to procurement practices based on those lessons and on recommendations from our industry. We continue working to remove permitting and infrastructure barriers, and we promote science-based setbacks for wind projects, which were successfully adopted as provincial policy. While the focus on offshore wind is well deserved, we also want to make sure it does not come at the expense of the onshore wind opportunity that still very much exists. Both need to move forward.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, the new government elected in October has committed to start developing a 10-year energy strategy this year. We will be providing input, working through the regulatory challenges specific to Newfoundland that slow wind deployment, and staying active as a voice for the industry.

CanREA has some great resources to help with energy literacy. What would you point readers to?

Energy literacy is absolutely critical. Most people’s engagement with the energy sector goes as far as turning on the lights and paying their power bill. But in order to transition to a net-zero future, we’re moving away from a completely centralized generation-to-metre model towards a more distributed energy resource system that includes wind, solar, storage, smart metering, and more. It’s really important that people understand the role they can play and the benefits of this transition when it comes to rates, emissions, and economic growth in communities across Atlantic Canada.

A few resources from CanREA’s website worth exploring:

Quick Links