Quote from Steve MacLellan on June 16, 2026, 1:09 pm

Although this article is about Ontario, Nova Scotia could learn from it.

Ontario’s decision to award three new contracts for 640 megawatts (MW) of battery storage capacity—and reject new natural gas plants that were also in the running—shows that gas can no longer win a competitive bid against the less expensive, lower-carbon option, a clean energy advocate says.

Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator said the announcement marked the end of the first round of energy and capacity contracts under the LT2 process. In the first round in April, 2026, all 14 contracts went to solar and wind projects.

With battery costs in Ontario falling from more than $1,100 per megawatt per business day in 2023 to an average cost of $563.48 in Friday’s announcement, “gas plants aren’t competitive anymore,” Brooks told the Toronto Star. “If there’s a level playing field, clean energy and batteries win every time.”

On LinkedIn, Brooks said batteries prevailed in the LT2 capacity auction even though the province was putting a thumb on the scale for new gas plants.

“Though some voices in Canada, particularly in recent weeks, continue to argue that natural gas-fired power is still needed in very large quantities to manage peak electricity demand, Ontario’s results are proving that increasingly batteries can do the job at a fraction of the cost of gas,” added Gurprasad Gurumurthy, senior analyst in the Pembina Institute’s electricity program. |Read more|