Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I will pass this one over to Dr. Dragon, as well. Thank you.
Dr. Dragon.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The LCELF, Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund agreement, is providing $31.2 million over four years to fund projects and initiatives that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the Northwest Territories. All six of these initiatives were proposed by the Government of the Northwest Territories and will directly support the implementation of the 2030 Energy Strategy. The combined proposed initiatives have the possibility to leverage up to $74.2 million, all of new programs, if fully subscribed.
In terms of the six initiatives, the first one is energy efficiency upgrades for public housing; the second one is energy efficiency upgrades to GNWT marine vessels; third, government greenhouse gas fund; fourth, buildings and industry grant program; fifth, enhance Arctic Energy Alliance programs and services; and finally, the last one is the active carbon sequestration in forestry. We could provide those details if the Member would like. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Dragon. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Thanks for the explanation. I was aware of that. Just, there's this line item here, "large-scale commercial and industrial." There seems to be maybe a word missing, but I had understood that there was going to be some kind of grant or program to big emitters. I'm just wondering: is this it? Last year, we spent $2.5 million on this, and I guess I am trying to understand what we got for it and some description of what the money is actually for and how it's rolled out, how do people access it, and so on. If they have to provide that later, that's fine. I just want some details of that particular initiative. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
We will commit to taking this away and getting more details for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I'm just trying to find in the budget here, how does Arctic Energy Alliance get its funding from Infrastructure? Is it somewhere else in the budget, or is this the portion to ask questions about it? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, it is. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. There was a review of Arctic Energy Alliance. It's adjusted some realigning of some of their work, and I am just wondering how we are making out with that. There is a lot of additional funding that is coming from the federal government that is going into Arctic Energy Alliance. How is that work progressing, and have they realigned their programs according to the evaluation that was carried out? What's happening? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, this is the area for Arctic Energy Alliance. It was part of the priority to give them more funding. I am going to pass it over to Dr. Dragon for the more detailed explanation. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Dr. Dragon.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Arctic Energy Alliance, in terms of their funding, they get $2.74 million in core funding that is ongoing from the GNWT. We have also been able to leverage $3.07 million. That's a combined program through that LCELF program, as well as GNWT, for a total funding allotment of $5.8 million.
In terms of their review, and as they're looking at programs, some of the key projects that they're currently working on right now are diesel generator replacements in Sachs Harbour and Lutselk'e; conversion of Fort Simpson from diesel generation to natural gas; hydro power overhauls that they are working on with the existence of Taltson and Snare systems; the Inuvik wind project and the Fort Providence transmission line; and finally, some energy retrofits.
They are an arm's-length group from us and have their own board of directors, but I believe that they have taken those lessons learned and applied it to these programs. All of my feedback from this funding, and in terms of the programs that they have, is they feel very complemented with the amount of funding that is provided in this fiscal year. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Dragon. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I see that the clock is ticking down, so I am just going to make a couple of comments here. Look, Arctic Energy Alliance, I think they do good work. Personally, we have accessed them a couple of times for energy efficiency work on our own home. Part of the difficulty is the programs that they offer, you have to have the money to be able to invest to do the upgrades, and it's often expensive work. They need to find ways to broaden their programs for people who don't have the cash up front and make the programs more accessible. That is a suggestion.
The other thing that I continue to hear complaints about in Yellowknife, and I understand why they did this, is they don't support solar projects in Yellowknife anymore, because there is some concern about Yellowknife already being a hydro-based community. Why would we give people money to take themselves off the grid when hydro provides the power here? I know that that's a low carbon economy fund issue, as well, but I understood that they were going to try to find some other ways to support solar. It's also tied up with the bigger issue with getting rid of big grids, period, in the Northwest Territories and building energy self-sufficiency in individuals' homes, but all of that to say, Madam Chair, I guess I would like to get the Minister to -- SCEDE can do this on its own, but we need to have Arctic Energy Alliance come in and talk to us about the programs that they offer, especially with this injection of new money, and how they're looking at redesigning that and making their programs more accessible. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. I'll take that as comments, and I will go on to the next person. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess there was, I think, some discussion on fuel and fuel prices. I am just wondering, with transporting fuel, how do we arrive at a price for that? Is it based on some real numbers, or is it based on what MTS requires to break even? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would hope that everything in my department does is based on real numbers. I hope he doesn't mind, but I will let Dr. Dragon answer this one, too. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Dr. Dragon.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, very much based on real numbers, and very much based on market prices when we're getting them and buying them. Buying that quantity of fuel from the South, and then it has to either get trucked or trained up, and then put on barges, and then supplied to the 16 communities that we provide fuel through MTS. Again, we are looking at various options when we're looking at fuel pricing. There are different options right now, given the price of fuel. We've looked at options of, actually, maybe coming from the North versus coming from the South, and in fuel services, we're looking at trying to maximize the dollar for the taxpayer. We're currently looking at those two options. We haven't landed on those, but we do have, again, this capacity to bring fuel into the North in different methods and we're exploring those. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Dragon. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure where you're buying the fuel from, where we're buying it from, if it's a rack price in Edmonton or where it is. Have you looked at, I guess, the rack price in Edmonton versus rack price say, in Vancouver, and rack price somewhere else overseas, and coming up through the North? I'm not sure what the rack price is. You might be able to give us a number. It doesn't have to be a solid number, just maybe a range of what we are paying for rack price and where. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Dr. Dragon.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, that's rack, wholesale plus. We do look at every single option in terms of buying fuel. In terms of the purchasing of fuel, because we buy so much of it, we need to look at opportunities where we can try to save on that purchase, but like anybody, every day sometimes, the fuel prices are changing. In terms of looking at how do we maximize that, our fuel services team, that's what they're doing right now, trying to figure that out and trying to maximize all the time. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Dragon. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Do you have an example of a rack price in Edmonton? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister? Dr. Dragon.
Thanks. In terms of an exact price, one of the things that we do with the rack, wholesale plus, we get a discount to the wholesale published price. Then, we add the cost of trucking or barging, plus a margin to administer. We negotiate a discount to rack, and we are definitely considering other options than Edmonton. Right now, it's Edmonton, and I'd have to get back to you with that price. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Dragon. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess in the news in the past, we saw negative oil prices. Has that affected the price that the GNWT has been paying for fuel or gas? Because that's a question that constituents ask: why is the price at negative whatever, and we're still paying $1.00, $1.20 a litre, and in Edmonton, they're paying 50 cents a litre? I'm just wondering, and I understand that we're buying bulk and we have to kind of have it ahead of time to get it on the barges and move it north. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. That is correct. We have bought it at an earlier time and, therefore, we turn around and we sell it back. At the time when we're selling it, we sell it for what we purchased it for. We don't make any profit off the fuel sales. Unfortunately, there is a lag where, if we had bought the fuel and shipped it up the previous year, it's still being sold at that same price. We did have some conversation about whether or not we could equalize and look at reducing the prices now. There needs to be a more fulsome conversation, but the gist of that is: can we burden the future consumer with that extra price? So it's a bit more complicated than that. The short and basic of it is, we bought it at that price last year, and that's what we're selling it for now. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The other issue I guess with fuel is the barging of the fuel and it's going north. I've been to Sachs Harbour when the fuel has actually showed up and it had to get turned around and sent back because it didn't meet spec. Do we take that into account, those types of things into account, during delivery or in our costing? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. If you're referring to a couple of years ago when that all happened, no, just in general. Well, I'll refer to that incident anyway, where fuel was not good when it showed up. The department looked at that. They took a look at their procedures through that, and they implemented measures afterwards, to not have the bad fuel sale again, and they did put in more controls. I don't know if Dr. Dragon would like to add to that, but I'll give him an opportunity to do so. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Dr. Dragon.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, in terms of going through and figuring out the fuel that's coming up, there's a very rigorous process that come in where they test fuel based on the shipments. The situation the Minister was talking about, we got into a situation where we couldn't bring rail cars through because of the fire and high level, so we ended up having to truck. Every case that you do in terms of that testing amount is in the thousands of dollars, and so, as you go through and test those carloads of fuel to make sure that it has spec and it meets spec, along the way, we do that to ensure as we're transferring fuel. I would say that, even where we had that fuel that was under spec, the folks in fuel services were able to get some engineers on that fairly quickly, and actually made all that fuel right back up to grade, and we were able to do that very efficiently. There was no wastage of any fuel. At no point did anybody not have access to fuel during that situation. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Dragon. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Another question that comes up with constituents, of course, is the price of fuel. They want to know: why is it so high? What are the components that make up the cost of fuel, the taxes, the freight, and those items? Can you provide to have the information to me? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the Member answered his own question. What makes the fuel price? It's the transportation. It's the storage costs. It's paying contractors, the distributors. All of that does add to the cost. I do believe there is supplementation, and that not all of those charges are passed back to the consumers. I don't know that there's really more to add. How about this, that we commit to having a bit more of a detailed outline on the fuel services for the Member, if that would satisfy? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Hay River South.
No further questions. Thank you.
