Alberta emergency power alert underlines challenge of energy transition on Prairies

Saturday night’s emergency alert from the province of Alberta, warning of rotating energy outages due to strain on {the electrical} grid brought on by the acute chilly, underlines simply how tough the vitality transition goes to be within the Prairie provinces, in keeping with economist Andrew Leach.

It additionally demonstrates why extra flexibility is required in Ottawa’s Clear Power Rules to decarbonize the nation’s electrical energy grids, he says.

The emergency alert was issued at 6:44 p.m. Saturday. Residents have been requested to instantly cut back electrical energy use to necessities solely. The Alberta Emergency Administration Company (AEMA) urged Albertans to show off pointless lights, keep away from cooking with a range and delay charging electrical autos.

The Alberta Electrical System Operator (AESO) ended the grid alert for the system simply earlier than 9 p.m.

Leach is an vitality and environmental economist and a professor of economics and regulation on the College of Alberta. 

In an interview with CBC Information on Sunday, he mentioned the emergency alert was a results of a confluence of utmost circumstances. 

“You had, for a lot of Alberta, the coldest evening in 50 years, you had … a very acute low wind occasion, and final evening an absence of import availability due to a number of pressures on the Saskatchewan grid and on the B.C. grid concurrently we have been dealing with pressures. Add to that the sudden outage of a fuel plant. That alone places you there,” Leach mentioned.

The province’s vitality grid had as little as 10 megawatts in reserve energy at one level on Saturday evening, in keeping with the AESO provide demand report. 

Shortly after the alert was issued, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe put out a tweet, saying his province was offering 153 megawatts of energy to Alberta to assist them throughout the scarcity. The tweet included a pointed barb aimed on the prime minister.

“That energy will likely be coming from pure fuel and coal-fired crops, those the Trudeau authorities is telling us to close down (which we received’t),” Moe wrote.

Leach says he understands the place that impulse to struggle again in opposition to Ottawa’s new Clear Power Rules comes from.

He says simply because different markets within the U.S. and Canada could make this change to largely renewable programs with out risking grid reliability, that doesn’t imply that Alberta and Saskatchewan are being too pro-fossil gas after they push again.

“That presents a extremely large problem and I believe individuals have been too fast to wave that away,” Leach mentioned.

Leif Sollid is the communications supervisor for AESO. He says the final time the province was this near implementing rotating energy outages was throughout one other excessive climate occasion.

“The final time we had rotating outages — which suggests we’ve run out of our backup reserves — was again in July of 2013, throughout the flood. So it’s been 11 years since we’ve been on this tight of a provide state of affairs,” he instructed CBC Radio’s Dawn Alberta on Sunday morning.

If rotating outages are required, they might happen concurrently in small pockets throughout the province and they might be roughly half-hour in period. 

“What the outages do is mainly deliver down total system demand, so we will steadiness provide and demand. Provide and demand steadiness is completely essential,” Sollid mentioned.

Pointing to the truth that the province had a 12 per cent improve in energy producing capability final yr, and is anticipating comparable progress this yr, Sollid mentioned grid alerts, like these issued over the previous few days, ought to change into much less essential sooner or later.

“The provision image is definitely very constructive, and that may assist us over the long run,” he mentioned.

However Leach says not all further capability is created equal, particularly on the Prairies.

“Numerous that improve final yr was solar energy, so photo voltaic capability doesn’t change something in any respect for a 7 p.m. January spike,” he mentioned.

“You might have had 50,000 megawatts, all of the photo voltaic farms and wind farms on the earth situated in Alberta, and it nonetheless wouldn’t have come wherever near closing that hole.”

That’s why Leach says regulatory flexibility is required for the a part of the nation that’s awash in low cost vitality in the summertime, from wind and photo voltaic, however within the depths of winter, throughout actually chilly circumstances and actually excessive vitality masses, these sources don’t generate a number of energy.

“An answer relying completely on wind energy, solar energy and commerce isn’t going to get you thru a extremely chilly, darkish evening in Alberta,” he mentioned.

AESO’s Leif Sollid mentioned instantly after Saturday’s emergency alert was issued, individuals within the system management room may see a drop in energy demand. 

“It instantly fell by 100 megawatts and a few minutes later, it fell one other 100 megawatts. So, a 200-megawatt drop, and that acquired us by what we name the hump,” he mentioned.

Till the chilly snap ends, Albertans can proceed to assist by lowering energy and conserving electrical energy throughout the peak interval, Sollid mentioned.

“It’s easy issues… issues like not operating your dishwasher, not doing laundry, not plugging in your automotive, placing your block heater on a timer so it’s drawing energy exterior of that 4 to 7 p.m. window. Very small issues like that, however when performed throughout the province, as we noticed final evening, issues like that may make a distinction and can assist us out.”

Leach agrees. Looking forward to Sunday night, he says electrical energy discount will stay essential.

“It’s actually not wanting nice. We’re not on the disaster degree that we had final evening, however 5 and 9 p.m. the market’s nonetheless going to be fairly tight,” he mentioned.

“We want a small drop in demand. We don’t want all people to alter every thing.”