What Will the Churchill Falls Power Expansion Actually Deliver?

Commentary

On Aug. 17, 2026, Ottawa, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador announced a close to $70 billion investment package to “nearly triple the power generation capacity” of the mighty Churchill Falls power generation facility. The Churchill Falls hydroelectric station is one of the great engineering achievements in Canadian history. It is the country’s second-largest hydro facility, and will soon become number one in terms of capacity.

My concern is that this massive investment in “power capacity” will not triple the “electrical energy” production and that the investment will be inflationary for rate payers.

For half a century, Churchill Falls has delivered approximately 35 terawatt‑hours (TWh) of electricity every year, which is enough electrical energy for 2.3 million Canadians.

Churchill Falls boasts a capacity factor (CF) of 74 percent, which means it produces approximately 74 percent of its maximum design performance rating.

This $70‑billion expansion package is intended to cover legacy turbine upgrades and a second powerhouse at the Churchill Falls reservoir, a new downstream regulated run‑of‑river facility at Gull Island, and a large wind power complex—all integrated on a massive new long-haul high-voltage transmission system.

But Atlantic Canadians, who already live with some of the highest electricity rates in the country, deserve clarity about what this project will deliver.

The answer is not nearly as close to what is being advertised.

The new configuration is not designed to operate like the legacy Churchill Falls plant. Instead, the Churchill Falls expanded system will function as a wind‑subservient hybrid baseload—a peaker plant that acts to balance the volatility of the grid-connected 2,000-megawatt wind power facility.

In other words, power output from Churchill Falls will decrease when regional winds blow strong.

A system can have enormous nameplate power capacity and still produce modest electrical energy if it operates part-time or at a lower CF.

The federal government has emphasized the size of the capital package and the scale of the new capacity additions, but the physics of wind‑integrated hydro says the new system will not double annual energy production, let alone triple it.

An April 30 report by the Churchill River Independent Review Committee states that the legacy turbine modernization, together with a new second powerhouse built on the existing reservoir, will expand the nameplate capacity of the Churchill Falls facility by approximately 30 percent, or 1.65 gigawatts (GW), yet the annual electrical energy generation in TWh per year will barely budge.

The reason being, these large upgrades will achieve a CF of just under 9 percent and the reservoir volume remains the same.

Thus, $70 billion will expand total electric power generation capacity by approximately 6 GW and annual energy production by approximately 20 TWh relative to the average of 35 TWh based on the status quo.

If the same $70 billion were invested in modern combined‑cycle natural‑gas turbine (CCGT) plants collocated near metropolitan load centres, energized by massive Atlantic region natural gas resources, the outcome would be dramatically different.

Using specific capital costs for recent greenfield CCGTs built in Alberta, $70 billion could build approximately 44 GW of CCGT capacity.

Assuming said CCGTs operated in pure baseload roles and achieved a CF of 75 percent, 44 GW would yield roughly 289 TWh of electrical energy per year.

The estimated cost of electricity from the Churchill Falls expansion is $0.11 per kWh, while in Alberta, the average CCGT unit earned approxinately $0.05 per kWh.

Even after applying the industrial carbon price scheduled to reach $140 per tonne by 2040, the cost of electricity from a high‑efficiency CCGT plant increases by approximately $0.05 per kWh, making it still a competitive choice.

Thus, on a pre-industrial carbon tax basis, an investment in Atlantic Canada natural gas-consuming CCGT infrastructure would produce over 10 times more electricity at half the cost of electricity as the $70 billion Churchill Falls expansion project. Of course, this assumes Atlantic Canada taps its immense shale gas resource; otherwise, CCGT investments would run on imported gas.

The Churchill Falls expansion will produce zero‑emitting electricity, but to call it “clean energy” is to ignore the environmental footprint of large-scale remote hydroelectric facilities and their long-haul high-voltage transmission infrastructure.

If Canada is serious about emissions reduction, protecting the environment, and preserving affordability, governments should insist on transparent, side‑by‑side comparisons with best-in-class CCGT technology: capital cost, environmental footprint, expected annual energy, and levelized cost—with and without CO2 emission taxes.

Canadians deserve to hear that clearly.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.