Alberta’s premier has called Ottawa’s plan for a net zero grid by 2035 “illogical and nonsensical.”
“The Clean Electricity Regulations are an exceptionally bad, poorly thought out, and illogical plan,” Premier Danielle Smith told a news conference on Aug. 14. She was responding to proposed regulations announced by the federal government on Aug. 11.
“This nonsensical plan by the federal Liberals will strain our family finances as food and shelter keep getting more expensive … Ottawa’s strategy seems to be to placate the environmental extremists, while throwing regular Canadians under the bus,“ she said.
Ms. Smith told reporters the new rules would cause significant economic hardship.
“If they become the law of the land, these regulations would crush Albertans’ finances, and they would also cause dramatic increases in electricity bills for families and businesses across Canada,” said the premier.
She warned that demand for electricity is already expected to double between now and 2050, and enforcing the proposed rules would make meeting that demand even more difficult.
“The draft regulations will severely threaten the reliability of our power grid even more, leading to potential blackouts that would be devastating,” she said. She said some estimates put the cost of revamping the power grid at a trillion dollars nationally, and at least $200 billion for Alberta alone.
Ms. Smith repeated Alberta’s goal of reaching a net zero electrical grid by 2050, which her government believes is achievable. But she maintained the province will not jeopardize its power grid by trying to reach the 2035 federal goal.
“But grand sweeping fairy tales that threaten Canadians’ ability to keep the lights on are no way to speed things up,” she said.
Reporters questioned Ms. Smith on what Alberta’s government can do to ignore the rules if they become law.
“What legally we’re going to try to do is start with diplomacy and start with negotiation,” she said. But if that doesn’t work, she said the province is prepared to go to court, and she believes the Constitution is on their side, referencing Section 92A, which gives provinces jurisdiction over generating electricity.
Renewable Energy Project Pause
Ms. Smith’s government has been criticized by many in the renewable industry, as well as others, for announcing a six-month pause on renewable energy projects, with no warning to the industry. NDP Leader Rachel Notley, for example, posted on social media: “Renewable energy is a BIG part of our economic future. We can’t let the UCP jeopardize that. Their six-month ban on new projects is devastating to this booming industry. It must be overturned immediately.”Ms. Smith defended the move, arguing that with 23,000 megawatts of proposed renewable projects waiting for approval, the province had to act before its power grid ended up with too much of its electrical generating capacity depending on renewable energy.
“There were seven times in the last year where our power grid was stressed to the point of almost breaking,” she said. “And when I looked closer at what happened on those seven particular days, what we saw was that wind and solar were not operating at capacity. The heavy lifting was done by our baseload that we have of natural gas.”
The premier said in 2022, for example, solar only produced about 13 percent of its generating capacity in Alberta. Wind produced about 33 percent, she said.
“We cannot build our Alberta power grid on intermittent power,” she said. “If wind only works 33 percent of the time, and solar only works 13 percent of the time, we need to bring on more baseload power like natural gas to make sure that we don’t have rolling blackouts.”
But she said the province is not getting proposals for more baseload power stations.
“Why do we have no baseload power? We have no baseload power because the federal government continues to send messages that they’re going to leave those assets stranded. Who’s going to make multi-billion-dollar investments in natural gas if it’s going to be shut down within 10 years?” she asked. “So those are the reasons why we had to do the pause.”
Ms. Smith added that this is a bigger problem in Alberta than in many other provinces because Alberta gets little electricity from hydroelectric sources, and has no nuclear power plants, so natural gas is the main “baseload” option. And unlike most provinces, Alberta does not have a provincial power utility—power plants are built by the private sector.
Ms. Smith said two other issues that need to be sorted out are making sure renewable projects get cleaned up at the end of their lifespan and ensuring the projects do not use up too much productive farmland.
However, the federal government seems equally determined to keep pushing ahead with the plan for a net zero grid by 2035.
“Hi, @ABDanielleSmith,” he wrote. “If you look at the Clean Electricity Regulations, you will see they are designed to be flexible, realistic, and affordable. Beyond the peaker provisions, they also permit natural gas to run past 2035 with carbon capture technology applied.”
And in a follow-up post, the minister said that “the federal government has committed over $45 billion to help Alberta and other provinces to achieve a clean, affordable and reliable grid. Taking action to achieve net zero is expected to create 420,000 jobs across Alberta by 2050.”
Ms. Smith said Alberta recognizes the need to move toward decarbonizing the grid, but said they do not believe 2035 is achievable for Alberta. Saskatchewan’s position is very similar, although it does have a provincial utility called SaskPower.
