Round 4: Alberta Issues Fourth Electrical Grid Alert in 4 Days, Second in 17 Hours

A man walks in the cold trailing a steam cloud in Calgary on Jan. 12, 2024. The Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh

For the fourth time in as many days, and the second time in 17 hours, Canada’s most energy-rich province again found itself in an electrical crisis, short of energy.

The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) declared its fourth “grid alert” at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 15, less than 10 hours after the end of the third alert.

“The AESO has declared a Grid Alert due to extreme cold, and several power facility outages,” its post on X said.

The difference is that this alert was not during the evening peak and on a weekend, but during the morning of a workday.

By 9:05 a.m., the alert was over. At that time, the numbers had improved. Alberta was actually exporting 93 megawatts to British Columbia and 25 to Montana, while Saskatchewan was sending 92 to Alberta. That soon reversed for Montana, and a few minutes later Montana was sending Alberta five megawatts.

The Dispatched Contingency Reserve (DCR) was at 517 megawatts, based on an internal load of 11,381 megawatts and generation of 11,407 megawatts.

Unlike previous days where wind was minimal or even flatlined (it hit zero megawatts the morning of Jan. 14), wind was producing 564 megawatts. And solar was on the board, at 121 megawatts and rising.

Of the 45 wind farms in Alberta, 33 were producing power. Wind power production coming online on Monday was in sharp contrast to Thursday evening, when nearly every wind farm shut down as temperatures approached -30°C. Below that temperature, brittle behaviour of materials can significantly weaken them, running the risk of catastrophic failure.

AESO’s X post warned the province wasn’t out of the woods yet, however.

“The Grid Alert has ended as increasing wind and solar generation have created some relief on the system. Please continue conservation efforts during peak hours of 4-7 p.m. as extreme cold continues to challenge all of us in Western Canada,” it said.

Third Alert

The AESO declared its third grid alert in three days on Jan. 14 as frigid temperatures continued to blanket the province, driving up electricity demand while reducing available renewable power supply.

Temperatures across Alberta ranged from -40°C in the north in High Level, to -32°C in Edmonton, -29°C in Calgary and -29 C in Lethbridge. That’s a critical point, because around -30°C, wind generation is usually shut down to prevent brittle behaviour of materials causing catastrophic failures of wind turbines. Usually, but as the day would go on, it proved to be not always.

But even so, the temperature wouldn’t matter so much since there was next to no wind in southern Alberta, where the 45 wind farms are located. There was only 3 knots of wind at Lethbridge and Pincher Creek, and 4 knots at Vulcan and Medicine Hat, according to Windy.com at the time of the alert.

According to X bot account @ReliableAB, which posts hourly updates of AESO data on the Alberta grid, at 3:39 p.m., solar was falling, with 332 megawatts being produced from the 1,650 megawatts of grid-scale solar.

Wind had been minimal since the previous night. Indeed, for several points the morning of Jan. 14, there was zero power produced at all from Alberta’s 45 wind farms, with a total installed capacity of 4,481 megawatts. And this corresponded with zero solar power at the same time, meaning the 6,131 megawatts of wind and solar were producing zero power. During the 8 a.m. hour, four of Alberta’s grid-scale batteries were called upon to provide power to the grid, according to Dispatcho.app, a website which logs the minute-by-minute data from AESO. That was highly unusual, as the grid-scale batteries are rarely, if ever, deployed in the morning.

Earlier in the day, Premier Danielle Smith warned of the possibility of another grid alert. At 11:28 a.m., she posted on X thanking Albertans for reducing electricity use, and asking them to continue doing so.

“Unfortunately, due to today’s continued extreme weather, we’re not out of the woods yet. To avoid another risk to our electricity grid, please continue to be diligent and avoid unnecessary electricity use,” she said.

Earlier in the afternoon, Alberta was exporting power to both British Columbia and Montana. But by 4:08 p.m., it was importing 267 megawatts, including 89 from Saskatchewan.

Contingency Reserve Falls

By 4:37 p.m., AESO data showed the DCR had fallen substantially. All available 548 megawatts of hydro was thrown into the grid, with none in reserve. All that was left in AESO’s reserve back pocket was 12 megawatts of natural gas and 115 megawatts of batteries, with 15 megawatts of batteries already in play producing power to the grid. But at full output, Alberta’s nine 20-megawatt batteries typically only produce that much power for an hour. And the last 20 megawatts of solar was about to disappear off the board, with only 103 megawatts of wind on the grid out of the 4,481 megawatts of grid-scale wind installed.

Out of 87 natural gas-fired generating units (including one coal/gas dual fuel), only one unit has any additional capacity.

By 4:58, 262 megawatts of hydro were back on the contingency reserve board, with total DCR standing at 389 megawatts.

Contingency Hits Zero

At 5:08 p.m., Alberta’s contingency reserve fell to zero across the board, despite a required contingency of 500 megawatts. There was no additional hydro, gas, or coal available. The six available batteries were all put into action, providing 79 megawatts between them for about 10 minutes.

At 5:08 p.m., Alberta's electrical grid had nothing left in reserves. The column on the right is Dispatched (and accepted). Contingency Reserve was zeros across the board. Screenshot/AESO

The highlighted zero was supposed to be the 500 megawatts indicated above. Alberta had nothing in the tank at that point, at 5:08 pm. Screenshot/AESO

Around this time, imports jumped to 608 megawatts, with 434 coming from British Columbia, 21 from Montana, and 153 (the maximum possible) from Saskatchewan. Hydro now had 60 megawatts on the DCR list, but still no additional natural gas was available.

British Columbia to the Rescue

As the 6 o'clock hour progressed, British Columbia substantially increased its power exports to Alberta. By 6:45, that number was 496 megawatts, while Montana was contributing 14 and Saskatchewan 153. The total 664 made a big impact on Alberta’s ability to put 253 megawatts of hydro onto its contingency board. By this point, there was now 92 megawatts of gas available, and the contingency reserve hovered around 432 megawatts—a much more comfortable margin than it had been an hour and a half before.

That was important, too, because by this point, only four of Alberta’s t0 grid-scale batteries had any juice left. While they had done their job several times in the past three days, filling in for short times when needed most, the fact that six of those batteries were no longer showing on the DCR list also revealed their limitations.

Wind had also built up to 215 megawatts. Despite -34°C conditions, the Halkirk Wind Power Facility east of Stettler was producing 60 megawatts, having slowly built up power generation since 11:30 a.m.

The AESO pool price for power remained at the set maximum of $999.99 per megawatt-hour from 5 to 9 p.m.

However, later in the evening, power imports into Alberta fell tremendously, and the grid alert still had not been called off. By 9:19, British Columbia imports fell to next to nothing before starting to pick up again. Saskatchewan’s contribution fell to 92 megawatts, and by this point the generation contingency reserve was hovering once again just over 200 megawatts. At 9:22 there was zero natural gas DCR available, 148 megawatts of hydro, and 115 megawatts of batteries available.

At 10:12 p.m., AESO declared the end of the third grid alert. It had lasted for 6.5 hours. At this point, 15 wind farms were providing at least some power, totalling around 255 megawatts.

American Grid Also Under Stress

On the same day, a milder form of grid alert was issued by the Southwest Power Pool (SPP). The SPP runs from the Canada-U.S. border south of Estevan, Sask. to the Texas Panhandle, and incorporates all or part of 14 states in the Great Plains.

Texas electrical grid operator ERCOT's power forecast for Jan. 15 showed a projected 2,748 megawatt shortfall for 8 a.m. on Jan. 15. Screenshot/ERCOT

At 11:50 a.m. central time, the SPP said, “SPP is issuing a Conservative Operations Advisory for its entire Balancing Authority effective 4 a.m. CT Sunday, Jan. 14 with an anticipated end of 9 p.m. CT Tuesday, Jan. 16.

“Conservative Operations Advisories do not require the public to conserve energy, but are issued to raise awareness of potential threats to reliability among entities responsible for operating transmission and generation facilities. Individuals should contact their local utility for details specific to their area.”

At 6 p.m. central time, the SPP was getting 42 percent of its power from natural gas, 33 percent from coal, and 15 percent from wind. On a more typical day, wind can account for half or more of the power generated in the SPP.

At the far end of the SPP, Texas’s grid operator, ERCOT, issued a “conservation appeal” for the morning of Jan. 15, from 6 a.m.–10 a.m. CT.

“Operating reserves are expected to be low tomorrow morning due to continued freezing temperatures, record-breaking demand, and unseasonably low wind,” it said. “We request Texas businesses and residents conserve electricity use, if safe to do so.”

Editor’s Note: This article was updated on Jan. 15 after the AESO issued its fourth grid alert.