Emera (TSX:EMA) is adopting a strategy designed to deliver for the company’s customers and shareholders today and prepare for an energy future shaped by the customer-driven trends of decarbonization, decentralization, and digitalization. For over 15 years, Emera has been focused on safely delivering cleaner, affordable, reliable energy for the company’s customers.
Predictable returns and steady growth
By delivering for Emera’s customers, the company is driving predictable returns and steady growth for the company’s investors, enabling it to reinvest in other companies and communities. With the challenges of the pandemic and additional protocols in place, Emera continues to advance the company’s strategy and capital program, executing $2.7 billion in capital in 2020, more than any other year in the company’s history.
Further, in 2020 and 2021, Emera’s large capital projects remained on time and on budget. As Florida’s top producer of solar energy per customer, Emera completed construction of the final phase of the company’s first 600 megawatts (MW) of solar power, putting six million solar panels into service over the last three years.
Significant modernization progress
Furthermore, Emera has started work on another 600 MW to be put into service in 2023. Within two years, nearly 14 percent of Emera’s energy will come from the sun, enough to power more than 200,000 homes. The team at Emera made significant progress on the $850 million modernization of the Big Bend facility and remains on budget and on track for putting the gas generators into service, further reducing the use of coal.
When complete in 2023, this project will have state-of-the-art, highly efficient, combined-cycle natural gas units, capable of producing 1,090 MW of electricity. Emera also recently announced the company’s climate commitment which included a set of clear decarbonization goals and Emera’s vision to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
Greater access to information
Also, Emera has continued the company’s deployment of next-generation automatic meter infrastructure, called smart meters, to electric utility customers in Florida, Barbados, and Nova Scotia with over a million now in service, providing Emera customers with greater access to information about energy use.
The company plans to install roughly 1.4 million smart meters by 2022. Emera also executed the largest pipeline expansion in the history of the company, significantly increasing capacity and reliability for customers.
Emera also advanced a clean energy bridge project in Barbados, a new 33 MW generation facility that will serve as critical generation capacity, delivering affordable and reliable energy for customers, as Emera continues to champion and build renewables and transition to a 100 percent clean energy future in Barbados. Construction is slated for completion later this year.
Innovative, utility-owned platform
In addition, Emera also launched the BlockEnergy microgrid solution, an innovative, utility-owned platform that integrates rooftop solar, energy storage, and smart controls. BlockEnergy creates independent clean energy networks and maximizes reliability by also being fully connected to the power grid.
BlockEnergy was developed in partnership with Sandia National Labs and has been successfully demonstrated and tested in the U.S. Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This could serve as a catalyst and result in a higher stock price.
