Canada's ageing electricity infrastructure will need billions of dollars in investments to ensure its generation stations, transmission and distribution lines do not collapse under an exploding demand, industry experts said yesterday.

While the engineering experts refused to draw direct links between the needs and a pair of recent incidents that struck two of the country's largest cities, they warned that time was running out for many steel towers, electric poles, wires, transformers and facilities.


"You're now looking at [50-year-old] infrastructure that is in need of replacement," said Jatin Nathwani, the executive director of Waterloo University's Institute for Sustainable Energy. "These things may last 20 years, [or] they may only last two. You don't know, so there's a large unknown and uncertain gap growing in terms of understanding the integrity of that infrastructure."

Over the weekend, an explosion struck a transformer under a 22-storey high-rise in a Toronto neighbourhood, forcing the evacuation of some 900 residents. The incident follows a recent electrical fire that struck underground cables in Vancouver, causing blackouts.