Ottawa, Canada - Canadian officials on Monday announced plans to massively enhance wind and hydropower generation in the country's east, a project dubbed "the largest clean energy investment in North American history."
The tentative agreement between Prime Minister Mark Carney's government, the province of Quebec, as well as Newfoundland and Labrador, marks a major effort to increase clean electricity production.
It includes plans to upgrade the Churchill Falls generating station while developing a new hydro project on Gull Island. Both sites are in Labrador, on Canada's Atlantic coast.
Some of the new power generated would also be transmitted to Quebec, with utility HydroQuebec selling a significant amount of electricity into the northeastern US.
Carney's office put the total investments in the project at a little over $50 billion, but the initiative could be stalled within months.
At Monday's signing ceremony in Newfoundland, Quebec Premier Christine Frechette acknowledged that her political opponents, the separatist Parti Quebecois, could tear up the agreement if they win provincial elections in October, an outcome current polls suggest is likely.
If the project moves forward, however, Carney said the amount of power generated would be "enough to light, heat, [and] cool the homes in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver combined."
Since taking office last year, Carney has been criticized by environmental groups who accuse him of betraying climate pledges backed by his predecessor Justin Trudeau.
Monday's announcement was, however, welcomed by the Canadian Climate Institute, which said it showed "the level of ambition needed to reach Canada's goal of doubling the electricity grid with clean energy."
The group's president, Rick Smith, said that enhancing domestic clean energy supply will "improve energy security and affordability in a time of volatile energy price swings."