Opinion: Alberta's Electricity Distribution is Key to Improving Affordability

Source: Alison Cretney, Maureen Kolla & Terri-Lynn Duque | · EDMONTON JOURNAL · | July 15, 2025

Alberta’s electricity system is at a tipping point. Driven by the rise of energy-intensive industries, a booming population, and a shift toward increasingly electrified homes and businesses, electricity demand is climbing faster than ever. Meeting this challenge isn’t just about building more centralized generation capacity — it’s also about building smarter. And that starts with how we think about electricity distribution.

Often dismissed as the “last mile” of the electricity system, distribution is where the grid connects directly to customers — households, businesses, and entire communities. But today, it’s no longer just about delivery: It’s the front line of preserving affordability, enabling innovation, and boosting regional resilience. Of all modernization pathways available now, creating a system that turns consumers into contributors is key to keeping electricity affordable — and supercharging Alberta’s economic future.

That’s why the Energy Futures Lab and its Alberta’s Electricity Future initiative have spent two years working with a coalition of industry leaders, the regulator, the system operator, all levels of government, large consumers, non-profits, and Indigenous communities to develop a vision, and corresponding policy recommendations to serve as a near-term roadmap. What these recommendations highlight is simple: We can’t afford to treat distribution as an afterthought.