OPINION
By Ed Lohrenz published by the Winnipeg Free Press on April 1, 2025
If we can get past the hyper-partisan noise of daily life for just a moment, here’s an idea that will help us become more independent, reduce emissions, and save us and the province a lot of money.
Manitoba Hydro has declared they will soon not have enough power to meet our needs. Their upcoming proposal to the Public Utilities Board says they need a new $1.4-billion gas turbine facility that will burn imported fossil fuel that will have ongoing costs plus the financing charges. Ratepayers will have to cover these expenses through higher monthly utility bills.
Instead of higher costs for households and businesses, increased GHG emissions, and even more money leaking out of our provincial economy to pay for fossil fuel imports, what if we did the exact opposite?
This is where the idea of a new geothermal utility — already floated by the Wab Kinew government during the last provincial election — could be an exciting asset for Manitoba.
The initial focus could be converting the buildings using electric heat to ground source heat pumps (commonly referred to as “geothermal”). Each converted home will reduce peak load by six to seven KW. Converting 1,000 homes will provide six to seven MW towards Hydro’s 500 MW goal. There are over 130,000 such homes in Manitoba, plus many larger commercial buildings. Hydro’s entire goal of 500 MW could be met by converting about half of the electrically heated homes.
Why would building owners participate? By creating a “geothermal utility”, the cost of the energy infrastructure — the ground heat exchanger and delivery pipeline in front of your home — would be built and maintained by the utility. The cost of the infrastructure would be amortized over 75-100 years.
This is the same financing process already used by every other utility. The high upfront cost of the ground heat exchanger is avoided. Instead, the homeowner pays a small monthly charge, like the basic charge on your hydro bill.
Building owners who convert from electric heat to geothermal will see their hydro bill cut in half. Hydro’s own (rather cautious) data indicates the savings for a typical homeowner is $955 per year. These savings increase as the price of electricity goes up over time.
This is more than enough to cover the amortized payments for geothermal infrastructure. The homeowner ends up hundreds of dollars ahead every year for decades to come, because the underground geothermal infrastructure has a life expectancy of 50-100 years — like a gas pipeline.
Building larger ground heat exchangers allows the utility to take advantage of economies of scale and the opportunity to move energy from one building to another. If waste heat from an indoor hockey arena or data centre is added to the system, the size and cost of the ground heat exchanger can be reduced.
Operating a gas turbine to produce electricity requires Manitoba Hydro to purchase gas from outside the province. But only part of the cost of gas is purchasing it from outside the province. Another part is the cost of building and operating pipelines to move it it halfway across the country.
Moving energy to and from the ground within your community is much more efficient.
Choosing geothermal over fossil gas also protects Manitoba Hydro and its ratepayers from higher gas costs in the future and from carbon pricing rules.
If the cost of the geothermal infrastructure is amortized over time like gas lines, the cost of converting most heating and cooling systems is similar. This makes it economically feasible to install a geothermal system in place of even a gas system.
Converting enough buildings in time to avoid the need for the proposed 500-megawatt gas turbine facility may not be possible, but it may be possible to avoid the construction of future gas turbines
Now, when affordability, self-reliance and climate change are big issues for many of us, the benefits of creating a geothermal utility are obvious. Hopefully, Premier Wab Kinew’s government can help Manitoba Hydro see that the sooner this work begins, the better off we all will be.
By Ed Lohrenz , vice-president of Winnipeg-based design firm GEOptimize. In his 40-year career, he has designed thousands of successful geothermal projects spanning four continents.