Electricity policy of Alberta
[5] By January 2022, electricity rates and bills reached their highest price ever—more than 16 cents/kWh in Edmonton and Calgary, which did not include fees for distribution and transmission.
[5] On January 22, 2021, EDC Associates reported twenty years of success in retail competition in Alberta's electricity sector.
The UCP Minister of Natural Gas and Electricity responded that rate caps, which had been used previously did not increase future capacity and only provided short-term relief.
[8] From September 30 to December 31, 2021, TransAlta, which is one of the utility companies that dominate Alberta's generation sector, reported an increase of $405 million in profits compared to the same period in 2020.
In the 1930s, Prairies were the hardest hit because of the combination of the Dust Bowl drought and the Great Depression so any plans for electrification were paused.
[16]: 11 The province's 1940 Royal Commission on Petroleum recommended government intervention in the embryonic oil and gas industry to promote, speed up, and expand the energy sector's development while preventing "fortune hunters" from causing "chaos" through over-production.
[16]: 11 By 1948, electrification was a highly charged issue in Alberta as the installation of new electricity lines was slower and more costly in rural areas than in the denser cities.
[19] The municipality of Edmonton, was one of the early electricity facilities to convert to natural gas from coal, when its Rossdale plant made the switch in 1955.
In the same year, two new departments—Energy, and Forestry and Lands and Wildlife were established replacing the Alberta Department of Energy and Natural Resources.
The PPAs would make all the decisions and cover costs of constructing power generation plants as well as bearing responsibility for all the financial risks.
[27] In the EOM system, decisions about where facilities will be built, which technologies and the kind of energy source to be used remains with the producer often works with private investors who assume any risks associated with those choices.
It functioned as a "spot market intending to match the demand with the lowest cost supply and establish an hourly pool price.
[37] Since then they have reported 42 EEAs, of which only two reached a level 3 in which the AESO had to call for "shedding of electricity load" or reducing service to consumers.
The Power Pool is a not for profit entity that operated the "competitive wholesale market including dispatch of generation.
[41]: 186 Ninety per cent of Canada's usable coal resources, including different grades of coal, ranking from lignite the lower grade to semianthracite, are found in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB),[42] which underlie the three Western provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan.
[22]: 43 In 2007, a new policy was introduced to reduce GHG emissions by 12% starting with large emitters like coal-fired power plants, pulp mills and oil sands projects.
[44] Alberta was the first jurisdiction in North America to introduce a carbon tax—the Specified Gas Emitters Regulation, or SGER was considered to be a success story.
[45] In 2013, Alberta's generation mix continued to be "dominated by coal" at 55%, natural gas at 35%, and renewable and alternative sources at 11%, which included "wind, hydro, biomass and co-generation", according to the 2017 International Energy Agency (IEA) report.
By 2013, renewable and alternative energy represented 11% of the generation mix and included wind farms, hydroelectric, biomass and co-generation.
[44] TransAlta chose to move quickly to shift from coal-fired plants to natural gas that was partially financed by Brookfield Renewable Partners' CA$750-million investment.
The high cost of construction has often led to overruns and with many other less expensive renewable options, future hydroelectric projects should be considered with caution.
Over time they got bigger and taller, and their capacity and sophistication increased, according to the federal Natural Resources department's senior wind engineer.
[68] One of the Alberta's government's major legislations in terms of jurisdiction over the Energy Resources and Conservation Board (ERCB) was the 1960 Gas Utilities Act.
A 2012 Natural Resources Canada study concluded that environmental impacts from shale gas in terms of GHG emissions were significantly less than those of coal.
[74] Calgary-based utility company TransAlta reported an increase of $405 million in the three-month period from September 30 to December 31, 2021, compared to 2020.
[9] The residential sector includes home heating and cooling systems, household appliances, water heaters, and lighting.
Compared to other cities in North America, Calgary and Edmonton placed seventh and eighth in terms of the highest power costs.
This is one of the reasons Alberta's electricity system has provided reliable, sustainable power even during periods of rapid economic growth[citation needed].
uses that power to reduce its hydroelectric generation or that energy is wheeled through to the Pacific Northwest wholesale electricity market.
during periods of peak consumption, on unusually cold or hot days or when a larger-than-normal number of generators are down for maintenance.
