McMaster Energy Project Fueling a Fierce Fight Over Net Zero and How to Get There

By: Marco Chown Oved
March 30, 2023

(read the original article in The Toronto Star)

Despite a pledge to become “carbon-free,” McMaster University is building four natural gas power generators on campus — a plan that's drawn a substantial backlash from the student body and attracted international condemnation.

The power project, which got its building permit last month, is slated to be up and running by the summer.

“They say they are the most ahead university in Canada in terms of climate initiatives, which I find to be a dubious claim,” said Cordelia McConnell, a third-year social-work student and a member of MacDivest, a student group pushing the university to divest from fossil fuels.

The group says the $31-million project is even worse than owning stock in oil companies, she said.

“This gas plant is literal investment in fossil fuel infrastructure,” said McConnell. “We need to invest in renewable energy.”

The Hamilton university’s gas plans are the latest flashpoint in a simmering struggle over the role of natural gas in the transition to a carbon-free economy. Proponents tout natural gas as fuel that produces less carbon emissions than coal, but critics say renewable energy technologies that produce no emissions at all have advanced to the point where they’re cheaper.

On Wednesday, MacDivest delivered a letter denouncing the plan to the university signed by 120 environmental organizations from around the world, including Greenpeace Canada, 350 NYC and Extinction Rebellion San Francisco.

McMaster administration says the gas plants will enable the university to cut its carbon emissions. Called “peak shavers,” they will be used only for short periods of time when demand on the provincial electricity grid is highest, and when electricity is most expensive for large users such as universities.

This could save McMaster millions of dollars per year, freeing up money that will fund other carbon-emissions reduction efforts, said university vice-president Debbie Martin. First up: Electric boilers that will enable the university to stop using natural gas for heat (it’s also to heat water and for other uses).

“The peak shavers themselves, they will potentially add one to two per cent to our carbon (emissions). But at the same time, by combining it with a boiler project, the net result is a reduction of 21 per cent of emissions on campus. And we can’t do one without the other. They’re tied together,” Martin said.

Both projects are part of a Net Zero Roadmap the university adopted in 2020, after working with a sustainable energy consultant. The plan envisions carbon cuts of 40 per cent by 2025, 75 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2050, mostly by switching from fossil fuels to electricity.

That electricity could be extremely expensive because McMaster is such a big user. In 2019, it paid more than $7.8 million for electricity, according to the Net Zero Roadmap, and 87 per cent of that paid for peak-period use. That peak cost could be cut to zero if the university instead generated its own electricity for about 60-100 hours per year, according to the roadmap.

But doing so will create emissions.

“Clearly, peak shaving in of itself is not a carbon reduction measure,” the roadmap states. “Running the natural gas peak shaving generators ... adds to the campus direct emissions. Approximately 415 tonnes of additional CO2e emissions will result from 60 hours of generator operation.”

Conservation as an alternative

Students of MacDivest recognize the need to electrify campus affordably, but say peak shaving can be achieved without new gas plants.

“Peak shaving is not only done by creating more energy, it’s also done by reducing energy usage,” said McConnell. “So if the air conditioning was turned down a little bit, the peak could still be shaved but in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way.”

McMaster was able to cut its peak electricity use years ago, via a program called “chasing the peak.” But poor communication caused a backlash, said James Quinn, a biology professor and chair of the faculty group MacGreenInvest.

“They blew it. They didn’t tell anyone and they just started turning off the A/C. It ended up ruining temperature-sensitive experiments,” he said.

“They should try conservation again — concentrate the students into fewer classrooms, prioritize labs and send people home early,” he said. “It’s better than spending millions on fossil gas.”

Quinn points out that the gas generators will become more expensive to run because of the carbon tax, set to double the price of natural gas by 2030.

What about batteries?

Large batteries storing off-peak electricity and using it in peak times can perform the same service as the plants without emissions, says Justin Rangooni, executive director of Energy Storage Canada.

“A growing number of industrial and commercial customers across the province are availing themselves of battery energy storage alternatives to achieve the same savings objectives that it looks like McMaster is trying to do,” he said.

Energy Storage Canada estimates that there are more than 200 megawatts of batteries installed in Ontario by businesses and institutions looking to save money and provide backup power.

Trent University installed batteries last year for peak-shaving purposes and expects to save $1 million per year on its electricity bill. In 2017, Metrolinx scrapped its plan to build natural-gas-fired peak-shaving plants in Mount Dennis, after locals rose up against the proposal. Instead, the regional transit agency installed batteries.

McMaster’s vice-president Martin said the university considered batteries but “when we developed this strategy, the technology wasn’t capable or reliable enough to power all of McMaster’s campus.”

But there’s still time to pivot, suggested Jason Rioux, chief development officer at NRStor, a Toronto-based battery storage company that just announced Canada’s largest grid-scale battery project at Six Nations.

“I understand how their plan came together over the last few years, and it’s a technically workable plan. But it’s yesterday’s technology,” he said.

Battery storage doesn’t just save money, it makes money when charging up on cheap, surplus off-peak electricity and selling that electricity back into the grid when demand is high, Rioux said.

He added that he stood up at a community meeting with Metrolinx to argue against their gas-plant plan and tell the room about battery storage, and he was pleased when it was later chosen, even though the agency didn’t partner with his company.

“It’s never too late. Even if you have to pay $1 million to exit a purchase agreement, it still makes sense,” he said.

And batteries should be more attractive now that the federal government has announced a 30 per cent investment tax credit for energy storage projects. “Gas plants don’t get that,” he said.

Martin said McMaster is looking at carbon capture technology to reduce the emissions from the gas plants and would be open to pivoting to new technology in five years, once the investment in the peak shavers has been paid off.