Canada’s renewable energy sector is expanding rapidly, with wind, solar, hydro, and battery storage projects appearing from coast to coast. But while the growth opportunities are significant, the country’s geography and climate also introduce challenges that set it apart from other markets – even close neighbours like the United States.
That’s according to Moustafa Abdelrahman (pictured right), senior underwriter and assistant vice president, renewable energy, at AXIS Capital, who recently became the company’s first Toronto-based underwriter dedicated to the sector. His appointment reflects AXIS’s move to strengthen its local presence in a market that is evolving quickly, but in ways that are distinctly Canadian.
Abdelrahman said the biggest differentiator for Canada’s renewable energy projects is the breadth of weather risks across its vast geography – and the extremes in some regions.
“Canadian weather can be a bit different,” he told Insurance Business. “The highest natural catastrophe risk varies by region in Canada. For example, BC has flooding risk. Alberta has higher hail risk. And the Eastern provinces tend to suffer quite a few windstorms.”
For underwriters and project developers, this means looking closely at whether equipment sourced from outside the country can withstand local conditions – particularly in northern climates where cold weather can be severe.
“When they’re buying equipment, for example for wind, we want to ensure that the turbines are able to withstand the extreme weathers we have in Canada, especially northern Canada,” Abdelrahman said. “That can be extreme temperatures at -40, -50, icing or freezing conditions. They’re built somewhere else, but I want to make sure they’re able to handle the cold weather climate here.”
Solar projects face their own climate-driven hazards. Abdelrahman recalled incidents where snow accumulation following major storms created loads heavy enough to cause racking systems to fail.
“We saw some things where, after a snowstorm, there’s a huge snow load on racking systems for solar panels, where basically the racking systems would fall and fail,” he said.
Mitigating the risk, he explained, requires both operational readiness and proper equipment selection. “We want to make sure that snow is being cleared as soon as possible, and that the client has a plan in place. Also, that the racking system is able to handle a reasonable amount of snow load in case that happens again.”
Part of Abdelrahman’s role in Toronto is to bridge the gap between global insurance expertise and local project realities. In his view, physically being in Canada is a competitive advantage, allowing him to visit sites, meet with clients face-to-face, and understand mitigation measures first-hand.
“I’m familiar with Canadian policy wordings and the different jurisdictions they apply to,” he said in a previous discussion with Insurance Business. “It means I can visit project sites, see the mitigation measures first-hand, and have more meaningful conversations with clients about how they’re managing risk.”
That local insight becomes especially valuable when tailoring underwriting to account for Canada’s climate-specific hazards.
While Canada’s renewables market has its own risk profile, Abdelrahman and his colleagues aren’t starting from scratch. Sam Walsh (pictured left), head of North America renewable energy at AXIS, said the company’s global reach means Canadian underwriting decisions can draw on lessons from other regions.
“It’s not like we’re reinventing the wheel,” Walsh said. “Lessons learned from wildfires that we’ve had in California or large hail losses that we’ve suffered in Texas – those are still things that we can share across our global team, and that will influence how we write business in Canada as well.”
The advantage, he added, lies in combining a specialized local offering with a flow of information and expertise from markets facing their own weather-related and operational challenges. “We can have a specialized offering in a location, but it’s informed by a global team that is seeing a wide array of risks as well as a wide variety of losses,” Walsh said.
Beyond managing today’s risks, Abdelrahman sees his work as part of a broader effort to support Canada’s energy transition.
“In general, we believe in renewable energy. We think it’s part of the future,” he said. “We want to be able to work with clients to make it more insurable, to make the risk better for both of us, and to make them more reliable. We’re hoping to help with the energy transition in general.”
That, he noted, requires collaboration between developers, equipment manufacturers, insurers, and other stakeholders to ensure that projects are built to withstand Canada’s diverse climate hazards and operate reliably over the long term.
