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.
Alberta Premier 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.”
During the night of Jan. 11 and into the morning of Jan. 12, 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 on one of the coldest nights of the year, even with wind blowing at 7 to 9 knots, according to Saskatchewan energy news site PipelineOnline.ca.
Edmonton’s airport recorded a temperature of -45.9°C on the morning of Jan. 12—the airport’s coldest temperature in more than 14 years.
“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.
“And so we need to build our system in the Prairies to not depend at all on intermittent wind and solar. So that’s a wake-up call.”
‘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.”
By Jan. 15, the AESO had declared 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.
“They are weather-dependent and need to be duplicated with reliable alternative sources, so power grids with wind and solar end up paying twice for the same generating capacity. Wind and solar are not at all cheap once you factor in the cost of solving the intermittency problem.”
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.In 2016, Alberta, under the Notley government, agreed to pay three power companies $1.36 billion over 14 years to shut down 6 of their 18 coal-fired plants early, with the other 12 either scheduled to close or to convert to natural gas before 2030.
“Alberta’s hydro grid crisis was the result of the NDP choosing climate goals over energy responsibility,” said Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, in a Jan. 15 post on X.
The federal government under Stephen Harper had earlier set out rules to curb emissions from coal back in 2012, which were to come into effect in July 2015.
“Shutting down coal prematurely just to be environmentally trendy was a risk well documented at the time. Without built out capacity to make up the difference, politicians attempting to appease climate fanatics at the time gambled/risked the safety of thousands,” Mr. 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.However, she said Ottawa’s policies such as its Clean Electricity Regulations (CERs) and electric vehicle (EV) mandate will only exacerbate the problem of overtaxed energy grids and the potential for blackouts.
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.
A Jan. 12 commentary by 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.
“Pipelines and LNG [liquefied natural gas] import terminals will extend the use of natural gas for years to come, and guarantee that fossil fuels will retain a critical role in key power systems well beyond 2030,” wrote Gavin Maguire, global energy transition columnist for Reuters.
On Jan. 15, Alberta-based Capital Power Corp. and Ontario Power Generation announced that they will partner to develop and deploy small modular reactors for Alberta. The media release noted the clean and reliable nature of nuclear energy.
