Canada has major strengths bolstering a multibillion-dollar opportunity to build the renewable energy it needs to satisfy future electricity demand, speakers at Clean Power Finance Canada said.

Held Tuesday at The Quay in Toronto, the event organized by the Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA) assembled some of the country’s top players in the sector including power producers, developers, financiers, innovators and policy makers.

Looming over the event was a report published by CanREA titled Watts at Stake: Canada’s $200-Billion Clean Energy Investment Opportunity. To help meet the ever-increasing hunger for electricity in Canada, the report states an additional 55 to 88 gigawatts of new wind, solar and energy storage capacity could be added by 2035. That represents between $143 billion and $205 billion in investment over the next decade.

Though not without its hurdles in regulations and supply chains, Canada is well-suited for a surge in renewable energy development, keynote speaker James Brooks, the managing director and co-head of energy, infrastructure and transition investment banking at CIBC World Markets, said.

Canada has the stability that developers crave and billions of dollars to be spent on projects big and small, he outlined.

“Boring is good in the capital allocation game. And we are pretty boring here in Canada.”

Why Canada is a renewables investment hot spot

Canadian power purchase agreements, Brooks said, are predictable and often inflation-linked. Additionally, the Canadian contracts lack the transmission and commercial complexity often seen in the U.S. market.

The consistency extends to procurement, he said, with a “visible, recurring pipeline” from the provinces. For example, governments in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Nova Scotia have been procuring hundreds of megawatts of renewable electricity over the last two years.

Third, the breadth of investment is broad, Brooks said. The opportunity is open to bank lenders, bond investors, infrastructure equity, Indigenous investment, pension funds and risk development capital. He named Boralex being acquired by Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. and La Caisse as an example of the big money flowing through the industry.

The Boralex transaction is proof there is abundant capital for the sector, Robert Nicholson, the Canada head and managing director of power, utilities and infrastructure at RBC Capital Markets, said on a panel about clean power equity. RBC Capital Markets was Boralex’s advisor for the transaction.

Canada is emerging as an “interesting market,” Nicholson said. RBC has been fielding calls as of late from international investors drawn to the country’s infrastructure investment opportunities. Like Brooks, he highlighted Canada’s stability such as the firm rule of law and “currency conversion that works,” as examples.

There is excess capital, Nicholson added, with the private sector “valuing things quite highly, at least in this business, compared to the public markets.”

Investors are looking for “engines that work” in the Canadian renewables sector, such as the company’s quality of cash flows, its management’s track record and the portfolio’s diversification across geography and technology, Iain Watson, the Canada manager for Marathon Capital, said on the panel.

Stability is critical to attracting investment: Brooks

Though there are many positives, all is not perfect. Brooks said the industry is closely watching how Alberta will protect the billions in capital deployed in the province after a sharp turn from spearheading the country’s renewables development to being barely visible following a development moratorium and tight restrictions on new projects.

There is also a “temptation” to tariff certain inputs in the renewables sector, Brooks said. Such trade barriers must be carefully assessed, introduced with sufficient lead time and calibrated against the maturity of the domestic supply chain, he continued.

Finally, Brooks cited the importance of continuity from federal incentives for the sector. He urged leaving the investment tax credits for the sector unchanged, sustaining the funding agencies and creating policy certainty around clean electricity and carbon pricing.

“The jurisdictions that win the contest for capital globally will be the ones that offer the most stable, transparent and predictable investment climate,” Brooks said.

Eve Bernèche, the managing director of infrastructure for La Caisse, said on the panel she has been bullish on the Canadian renewables market for the last 18 months. The U.S. is still a strong renewables market, "despite what's happening with the current administration. But it does mean to a certain extent people, developers, investors are shifting towards Canada," she said.

Governments, Bernèche added, should be flexible in structuring and be adaptable for investors. If investment structuring is too rigid, she said capital will be turned away.