Alberta’s Power Grid Alert Reveals Challenges with Renewables and the Risks of Climate Policies
Wind power generation in Alberta—with hundreds of turbines across 45 wind farms that cost billions—was producing just 0.8 percent of its capacity.
Frigid cold of historic proportions in western Canada has amplified the limitations of renewable energy in Alberta’s power grid and the potential for federal environmental policies to make matters much worse and possibly life-threatening.
Danielle Smith had on Jan. 10 described the challenges her province faces stemming from Ottawa’s “dangerous ideological policies.” Her words proved to be prescient, as just three days later, the
Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) told Albertans “to immediately reduce their electricity use to minimize the potential for rotating outages across the province.”
PipelineOnline.ca.
“Energy is a human right,” Heather Exner-Pirot, director of energy, natural resources, and environment at Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said in a Jan. 15 interview.
“It’s a matter of life and death … that people have access to energy. And renewables are producing less than 1 percent,” she added.
‘Gone Backwards Not Forwards’
The
Reliable AB Energy
bot account on X normally just posts hourly AESO electricity generation numbers, but it weighed in on Jan. 13 regarding the request to conserve energy.
“Being asked to save electricity in one of the coldest places on that planet that also happens to sit on one of the largest energy supplies in the world is insane,” it said.
“We should be one of the wealthiest most advanced societies in the world instead we are all sitting in the dark with our fingers crossed that heat stays on. We’ve gone backwards not forwards.”
four alerts, with the fourth one coming during the morning of a workday and not during the evening peak or on a weekend.
Ross McKitrick, professor of economics at the University of Guelph, told The Epoch Times on Jan. 15 that asking Albertans to curtail power usage during a cold snap is not unusual. This is because if the province were to be able to accommodate any usage spike—no matter how large—it would need to have much more power-generating capacity. But that would be inefficient, Mr. McKitrick explained, since a lot of that excess capacity would be sitting idle most of the time.
The real lesson, he added, is that a power grid can’t rely on intermittent sources like wind and solar.
Traditional power sources like coal-fired and hydroelectric plants are designed to produce the basic amount of power needed to supply the electrical grid at any given time—referred to as baseload—or to be able to quickly adjust power as demand increases or decreases, known as peaking, Mr. McKitrick said.
“The problem with wind and solar is not just that they aren’t peaking, it’s that they aren’t baseload either,” he said.
Made-in-Alberta Problem
Alberta’s green energy boom began with the NDP in 2015, with then-premier Rachel Notley’s
plan
to phase out coal and run on 30 percent renewable electricity by 2030.
$1.36 billion over 14 years to shut down 6 or their 18 their coal-fired plants early, with the other 12 either scheduled to close or to convert to natural gas before 2030.
Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, in a Jan. 15 post on X.
Stephen Harper had earlier set out rules to curb emissions from coal back in 2012, which were to come into effect in July 2015.
McTeague said in another Jan. 15 X post.
Federal Policies’ Potential Impacts
Ms. Exner-Pirot says that while the latest cold snap is exceptional and people tend to take their energy for granted, the problem is Alberta-made—not federally made.
Regarding the feds’ EV mandate—working toward a national target of 100 percent zero-emission vehicles sales by 2035—Ms. Exner-Pirot says a lot of time and money is needed to upgrade transformers and distribution in various neighbourhoods.
“At some point, the consumer has to pay … whether you own the EV or not. And so these are all things that the utility companies take very seriously, and I don’t think the complexity is reflected in the EV mandate,” she said.
According to Mr. McKitrick, “The idea that Alberta should impose EV and heat pump mandates—thus adding more load to the grid and making transportation and home heating dependent on intermittent renewable power—is ludicrous.”
DBRS Morningstar said in a Jan. 16 commentary that Alberta’s Jan. 13 grid alert underscores the potential repercussions CERs bring. “The draft CERs target Canada to have a net zero carbon emissions electricity grid by 2035, which could make the operation of some thermal power plants uneconomical.”
DBRS added, “The grid alert event could put further political pressure on the federal government to consider making changes to the regulations as currently drafted.”
Here to Stay
Mr. McKitrick and many other analysts say that Alberta’s fleet of fossil-fuel powered generators can’t be phased out any time soon, given that hydro and nuclear aren’t currently realistic options. Most of Alberta’s power comes from natural gas.
The global demand for natural gas is exploding.
Reuters
said that nearly every major region is boosting investments in the infrastructure needed to increase the use of natural gas in power generation, despite global efforts to move away from fossil fuels.
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