There is also support for a number of policies and actions the City of Regina could take to make progress towards the 100% renewable and net-zero target. Here's a snapshot of what Regina residents think about those actions.

We also asked if Regina residents support a broader city-wide 100% renewable goal where the City of Regina would work to ensure that the entire city, including private buildings and vehicles, is powered by 100% renewable energy by 2050. 64.5% of Regina residents support that broader target.

In case you don't want to read the whole report, here's a couple snapshots of the results. We asked if Regina residents support the city working to power all of its buildings and vehicles using 100% renewable energy by 2050. 67% of Regina residents support that target

We asked about 9 policies and actions the City of Regina can take to meet the 2050 target. There is strong support for retrofitting city buildings, requiring new homes to be energy efficient, good urban planning, rapid transit, purchasing electric buses & separated bikeways

64.5% of Regina residents support a city-wide 100% renewable target. This figure shows responses to the question: To what extent do you support or oppose the City of Regina working to ensure that the entire city, including private buildings and vehicles, is powered by 100% renewable energy by 2050?

We asked "To what extent do you support or oppose the City of Regina working to power all of its buildings and vehicles using 100% renewable energy by 2050?" 67.3% of Regina residents support this target as shown in this figure.

Minister Jeremy Harrison has just directed SaskPower to rebuild its coal-fired power plants and continue running them past 2030. The letter directs SaskPower to begin by putting Boundary Dam unit 4 back in service. This decision is problematic for many, many reasons and I list some of them below:

Canada has driving down electricity sector GHG emissions for years with actions like the coal phase-out in Ontario & more recently Alberta. This leaves SK & SaskPower responsible for an increasing share of Canada's electricity sector GHGs. SK was 11% of electric GHGs in 2000 & now makes up 28%

SaskPower's GHG emissions have remained at roughly 14 Megatonnes (Mt) CO2e since 1995. The move to natural gas has lowered the GHG intensity of SK electricity, but as demand has grown, our GHGs remain stuck at 14 Mt in absolute terms. The retirement of coal by 2030 would drop SK GHGs significantly.

Coal has been an important part of SaskPower's electricity generation fleet since the 1950s. However, no new coal plants have been built since 1992. Instead, new capacity has been largely natural gas plants and some additions of wind capacity.

I modelled two more strict versions of the regulation and found rate impacts of 1.5 to 2.1 cents/kwh in 2035. The final CER has an allowable emission limit of 65 tonnes CO2/GWh and allows up to 35 tonnes CO2e/GWh in carbon offsets. This greater flexibility will reduce the cost of the regulation.

6. The design of the Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credits (ITCs) is important. If the federal government provides power projects owned by Crown corporations like SaskPower with a 30% refundable ITC, then SK will see about $3 billion flow into the province for clean power.

5. With higher capital expenditures, SaskPower residential rates would be 6-9% higher in 2035. This isn't a huge increase, but is a challenge when SaskPower already has some of Canada's highest electricity rates.

4. The climate benefit provided by the CER does come at a cost. SaskPower would need to accelerate its capital investments to comply with the CER in 2035. I find that the difference in capital costs would be between $4 and $6 billion by 2035.

2. SaskPower will register a big drop in GHG emissions in 2030 when the last of the coal-fired power plants are retired. With or without the regulation, there will still be emissions in 2035 because there will still be gas plants online. The CER doesn't require zero GHGs in 2035

1. Building lots of wind is a good idea in Saskatchewan. With or without the CER it makes sense for SaskPower to build a lot more wind. SK has a great wind resource & we are smart to use it. SaskPower is planning to continue expanding wind & that is a least cost strategy