Wind and solar power exports could get a boost from ties, but the province would be a bigger power importer
Alberta has always been proud of the fact that it is (or tries to be) the master of its own house when it comes to energy.
The most famous example of this is former premier Peter Lougheed’s opposition to the Trudeau government’s National Energy Program. Since then, every Alberta premier up to and including Danielle Smith has tried to follow in his or her footsteps.
With the Smith government’s defiant response that it will “chart its own path” instead of following Ottawa’s newly written Clean Energy Regulations, the United Conservatives have taken the same fighting stance they’ve always taken on oil and natural gas extraction and put it on the other side of the “energy” coin: burning fossil fuels to make electricity.
But the new federal plan for a net-zero grid could also hurt Alberta’s reputation for being self-sufficient in another way. In this new green plan, the province whose economy depends heavily on exporting energy products would start paying to bring in a lot more energy, specifically hydroelectricity.
Alberta has been able to keep its lights on for a long time with mostly its own coal and natural gas. The age of coal power in the province is overthis year, while less polluting natural gas power plants are in the sights of the federal plan (though not too quickly; more on that soon).
Water way
But Ottawa doesn’t think that Alberta will be able to get all of its power from solar and wind, two green energy sources that found themselves in the Smith government’s crosshairs. This is because the UCP has put a new project moratorium in place that has made it harder to start new projects.jarred investors and been widely, heartily criticized.
People think that the provinces that already have much cleaner grids, like British Columbia and Manitoba, which get their power from hydropower, can help by making the connections between them stronger. How about a little more cooperation in this national and international fight to cut emissions and stop climate change from getting worse?wildfires and Multiple times broke heat records?
The federal regulations don’t say how much hydropower will flow into the province or give specific estimates, but the plan’s regulatory impact statement says that the new rules will cause Alberta to spend an extra $16.3 billion between 2024 and 2050 on net electricity imports from other provinces. By 2050, Canada’s whole economy is supposed to be net zero.
According to the documents, that works out to $789 million per year for 27 years.
Alberta already trades power with Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Montana, but according to the figures from the, it has been a net importer from our well-dammed neighbor to the west for a long time.Electricity System Operator in Alberta (AESO).
Andrew Leach, an energy and environmental economist at the University of Alberta, did some math to show that the federal net-zero path would mean a big increase, several times more than the net power imports in the past few years.
Building more transmission lines outside of Alberta has long been seen as a way to help the province.green its power supplyStill, supporters of British Columbia’s huge Site C dam haveurged better links with Alberta to improvePast Alberta premiers didn’t care much about the economics of the megaproject.
Though, unlike the oil pipelines in Alberta, an intertie would not only flow in one direction. It would make British Columbia a buyer’s market for wind and solar energy when nature makes a lot of it, offsetting the times when turbines and solar farms don’t make as much energy.
Leach says of the net-zero grid goals, “We need to be much more connected if we want this to work.”
But Ottawa’s prediction of a sharper rise in net imports suggests that more electricity would flow into Alberta than out.
Untie
There doesn’t seem to be much talk about making ties between Alberta and British Columbia stronger, even though Smith has been saying this since she was a member of the Wildrose Party.Getting more hydroelectric powerAs part of her “corridors” plan for a big deal to ship out more oil and gas, she wants to get oil and gas from other provinces.
It’s an area where the Trudeau Liberals are keen to foster cooperation, and subsidize it. On the other side of the country, Ottawa is offering to front billions on the multi-province Atlantic Loop transmission project.
The Alberta Chambers of Commerce have encouraged more intertie infrastructure, and they see it as a cost-saver for the province. In fact, that business group’s report argued that when AESO recently curtailed the existing interprovincial transmission to curb the risk of reliability problems, it added $300 million to $500 million to Albertans’ power bills.
Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz has instead proposed an Alberta-only path that leans on modular nuclear reactors, along with some post-moratorium renewable energy, but most heavily on more gas-fired generation (with incentives for carbon-capture abatements, rather than requirements).
The federal regulations do not slam the door in 2035 on natural gas power as firmly as the phrase “net-zero grid by 2035” would have us believe. For that year, it forecasts a diminished but still significant fleet of carbon-emitting generators, still more than half as much as there would be in a scenario without federal rules.
There are a raft of exemptions, including not requiring the more stringent standards until a plant has been operating for 20 years, if it’s built by 2024.
That means the many recent gas-fired plants, including those converted from coal, can continue operating into the 2040s.
There are estimates within the industry that 60 per cent of the gas-powered generation fleet will be initially exempted, including the massive Genesee gas plants scheduled to open next year.
But that also means two-fifths of Alberta’s natural gas generation has 12 years to comply with Ottawa’s rules, and either retrofit with costly carbon-capture additions, become seldom-used “peaker” plants during high-demand periods, or wind down altogether.
Schulz and Smith vow to do what they can to let Alberta resist what they brand “unconstitutional” proposals, with ample time to negotiate and engage in rhetorical wars while they’re in draft phase.
The potential for interties will likely also figure prominently on the negotiating table. It isn’t in Alberta’s habit to be an energy customer, but plenty else is changing these days, including the planet’s climate, markedly.