Residents in Alberta experienced rotating outages after a second electrical grid alert was issued this week, according to the Alberta Electric System Operator.
The organization said a grid alert due to a shortage of electricity supply on April 5 resulted in rotating outages around the province.
“The AESO has declared a Grid Alert as of 6:49 a.m. due to tight supply. Generation is slowly coming online, and we expect conditions to return to normal by 10:00 a.m.,” said an April 5
post on X, formerly Twitter.
An alert was also declared on the evening of April 3, Marie-France Samaroden, vice president of Grid Reliability–Operations at AESO, said during a
media conference on April 5.
“It is truly a combination of many things that occurred that got us into the rotating outage situation,” Ms. Samaroden said.
One of the complications was that one of the plants tripped, going offline, reducing the amount of electricity in the grid, she explained.
She said the system should be “in normal operating condition” for the weekend.
Premier Danielle Smith said her government was committed to protecting the provincial electricity supply.
“This is the second grid alert issued in recent days, and while contributing factors vary, we recognize this may be alarming to some Albertans. Minister of Affordability and Utilities [Nathan Neudorf] continues to work closely with AESO to understand the situation and ensure appropriate measures are taken,” she said in an April 5 social media
post.
“Our government is committed to protecting Alberta’s grid and ensuring our province continues to generate reliable baseload power both now and in the future,” Ms. Smith added.
January Alerts
Alberta’s grid experienced similar problems in January during a cold snap in the province.“The AESO has declared a Grid Alert due to extreme cold, and several power facility outages,” the organization
said on Jan. 15. It was the fourth alert issued within days, during some of the coldest temperatures the province saw during the winter.
Temperatures
varied around the province, from minus 29 degrees Celsius to below minus 40 during the several days of alerts.
To avoid rotating outages, the provincial government
encouraged residents to reduce their electricity consumption by turning off bathroom and kitchen ventilation fans, delaying using washers, dryers, and dishwashers, unplugging vehicle block heaters, and using a laptop instead of a desktop computer.
Alberta’s government has been opposing the federal government’s proposed net-zero electricity grid requirement by 2035, saying the province needs to rely on natural gas for its electricity needs and that renewables aren’t enough to meet all the demand.
Rahul Vaidyanath and Brian Zinchuk contributed to this report.
