Receipt — Canada's electricity expansion: the projected pace and the delivered record

A Receipt is a dated evidence summary for one product. It shows the question, the current answer, the sources, the method, the limits, and the next update.

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The question	Canada's official energy scenarios assume electricity supply expands far beyond its recorded pace -- how fast must generation and capacity now grow, how fast did they actually grow, and what does the measured record show since the projections' own history ends?
Current reading	Every scenario in the Canada Energy Regulator's Energy Future dataset -- including its most conservative -- assumes electricity supply now grows several times faster than the same dataset's own recorded 2005-2023 average pace, and faster than any twelve-year stretch inside that same record. On generation, the scenarios' mid-horizon levels require between roughly seven and fourteen times the recorded full-period average pace, and between roughly 1.7 and 3.1 times the fastest twelve-year stretch the record contains (2010 to 2022); on installed capacity, between roughly two and four times the full-period average, and between roughly 1.6 and 2.6 times the fastest twelve-year stretch (2011 to 2023). Measured generation in 2025 was above 2023 after a decline in 2024. The latest twelve months, August 2025 to July 2026, generated 634,612.2 GWh, compared with 627,557.3 GWh in the preceding twelve months: an increase of 7,054.9 GWh, or about 1.1%. This supersedes the earlier April-window reading, which was slightly below its year-earlier comparison. Canada’s installed generating capacity reached 155.906 GW in 2025, up 157.04 MW (0.1%) from the revised 2024 level of 155.749 GW. Statistics Canada revised the 2024 baseline downward; comparing 2025 with the earlier edition would incorrectly show a decline. British Columbia’s increase of 9,671.7 GWh exceeds the national increase of 7,054.9 GWh; the rest of Canada combined declined by 2,616.8 GWh. This is a geographic accounting comparison, not an explanation of causes. The newer generation window is positive, but one rolling annual comparison does not establish the sustained pace required by the scenarios. The measured and modelled records remain separate statistical bases.
Evidence reviewed through	2026-10-19
Basis	The Canada Energy Regulator's Canada's Energy Future 2026 dataset for the projection side -- scenario levels and the dataset's own recorded history, from one file, one regional total, one summation, so the required-pace arithmetic never crosses an accounting basis. Statistics Canada's electricity survey tables for the measured side -- installed capacity (annual) and generation (monthly) -- a second basis, shown beside the first and never merged with it; every change on this Brief is computed within one basis only.
Method	Pinned, cited evidence; every scenario uses a named, disclosed formula and is recomputed exactly with each rebuild of the record.
Confidence	The arithmetic is exact over pinned published figures, each re-derivable from archived source bytes recorded with content hashes; the open questions are the issuer's scenario assumptions and which basis a reader treats as decisive -- this receipt keeps both visible rather than resolving them.
Next trigger	The next annual installed-capacity reference year, each further month of measured generation, or the next Canada's Energy Future vintage, whichever is published first.
Next evidence	Monthly generation (Statistics Canada, monthly cadence, roughly a two-month reference lag); annual installed capacity (Statistics Canada, annually); the next Canada's Energy Future vintage on the CER's own publication cycle.
Expiry	Valid until either trigger publishes; a new dated Receipt is then produced against the new evidence, with its correction history intact.

Material definitions

Generation is stated in gigawatt hours and reflects what was demanded and delivered in each period under that period's conditions -- not the system's maximum capability.
Installed capacity is stated in megawatts (the projection dataset's own unit; Statistics Canada's kilowatt values are divided by one thousand, disclosed on each pinned value).
The projection dataset's recorded history ends at reference year 2023: its scenario blocks diverge from 2024 onward, so 2024 and 2025 are modelled years there even though those calendar years have passed.
The two bases state national generation for 2023 about one per cent apart; levels are therefore never compared across bases -- only each basis's own changes are read.
The provincial chapter reads the four largest provincial systems by the projection dataset's own last recorded generation year (Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia), each against its own record and its own scenario bracket only; the remaining six provinces are pinned in the Resolution under the same discipline, in the geography order Statistics Canada's electricity cubes use for the provinces -- never combined into a composite, never ranked.
A province's scenario bracket is its own lowest and highest of the four modelled 2035 levels; which scenarios form the bracket differs by province and is named on each pinned value, and the two intermediate scenario levels lie between the bracket ends in the archived file.
The delivered side of every provincial scenario row is that province's fastest twelve-year stretch in its own record -- not a full-history average -- because a near-flat or declining provincial long average would make the pace ratio uninformative; this is the same fastest-stretch comparator the national correction of 2026-07-17 established.
Provincial measured figures come from the same two Statistics Canada tables at their provincial coordinates, on trailing-twelve-month and annual windows identical to the national pins.

Decisive limitations

Every scenario level is the issuer's modelled pathway under its stated assumptions, not a commitment or a forecast by Countability; the pace ratios state how the pathways compare with the recorded past, never whether they will happen.
Measured generation is a raw survey total -- not weather- or seasonally adjusted -- and follows demand as well as capability, so a flat window under flat demand does not by itself measure what the system could deliver if the projected load arrives.
No public, openly licensed national series measures connection-queue demand, so whether the projected data-centre and industrial load is actually forming cannot be independently tracked from public data; this is published on the Brief as an evidence gap, not worked around.
The projection dataset's provincial generation rows for 2005-2009 differ between scenario blocks -- materially for the smallest systems -- so no provincial generation figure earlier than 2010 is pinned or published; provincial capacity history carries no such divergence and reads from 2005.
The ten provinces do not sum to the national measured pins; the residual (the territories plus unallocated amounts, roughly a third of one per cent of the national totals) is stated, never redistributed, and provincial figures are never rescaled to a national total they do not reconcile to.
The provincial demand side is as dark as the national one: no public, openly licensed series states connection-queue demand for any province, so no provincial adequacy conclusion is available from public data.

Key sources and licences

Canada's Energy Future 2026 -- electricity generation by primary fuel, 2005-2050, Current Measures scenario block (Region=Canada rows; gigawatt hours) — Canada Energy Regulator Licence identified from the dataset catalogue
Electricity – Imports and Exports, annual (electricity-exports-and-imports-annual.csv) -- exports, all Canadian sources to all United States destinations, the issuer's own Total rows — Canada Energy Regulator Licence text read in full
International Power Lines Information -- the register of every international power line the Canada Energy Regulator regulates, with its status, route, and terminals — Canada Energy Regulator Licence text read in full
Table 25-10-0015-01, Electric power generation, monthly generation by type of electricity (Canada, total all classes of electricity producer, total all types) — Statistics Canada Licence text read in full
Table 25-10-0016-01, Electric power generation, monthly receipts, deliveries and availability -- Canada, component "Deliveries to the United States" — Statistics Canada Licence text read in full
Table 25-10-0020-01, Electric power, annual generation by class of producer -- Canada, total all classes, total all types of electricity generation — Statistics Canada Licence text read in full
Table 25-10-0021-01, Electric power, annual supply and disposition -- Canada, component "Residential sales of electricity", quantity — Statistics Canada Licence text read in full
Table 25-10-0022-01, Installed plants, annual generating capacity by type of electricity generation (Canada, total all classes of electricity producer, total installed capacity) — Statistics Canada Licence text read in full
Table 25-10-0023-01, Conventional thermal, annual generating capacity by principal fuel -- Canada, all classes, total conventional thermal, principal fuel "Coal" — Statistics Canada Licence text read in full

This Receipt names the public sources and method needed to reproduce the figures it covers. Corrections are dated and explained, with the earlier published record retained.