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By Jason Wang and Scott MacDougall
Albertans aren’t any strangers to the intense chilly. We proudly layer up and don our parkas each winter. Though the latest chilly snap noticed a few of the coldest temperatures within the province in a long time, we plowed on. However then our telephones went off. For the primary time, the Authorities of Alberta used its emergency notification system to inform Albertans about an electrical energy grid alert.
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So, what precisely occurred?
Unsurprisingly, the intense chilly introduced extra demand for electrical energy throughout the province: individuals wanted extra warmth for his or her properties as did industrial processes. We set a brand new winter demand document; a development pushed by inhabitants development and rising electrical energy use. Nevertheless, because of households and business rapidly decreasing demand, Alberta returned to exporting electrical energy to B.C. and Montana inside two hours.
Alberta is successfully an electrical energy island – distinctive in Canada – with three small interties linking us to B.C., Saskatchewan, and Montana. These neighbouring provinces assist stability our grid and vice versa. Which means that, when Alberta has a surplus of vitality, we are able to export to one in every of these areas the place there could also be a deficit. Throughout that grid alert, we have been on the receiving finish of this balancing act. Upgrading and constructing extra ties to our neighbours permits flexibility and lets us promote extra energy once we can. It permits for us to assist each other throughout excessive climate occasions and ensures elevated reliability. Notably, Alberta’s latest development in wind and photo voltaic property positions the province to develop into a web exporter of electrical energy.
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One other main problem is that we nonetheless haven’t modernized laws from the times of being depending on centralized, giant coal-fired energy vegetation. For instance, Alberta’s electrical energy market just isn’t but formed to acknowledge the vital function of vitality storage. Power storage has supplied grids all over the world with backup for many years (most notably, pumped hydro services again up giant nuclear vegetation) and battery storage is now financial for backup for the grid and for households. In 2023, Calgary-based Enfinite added a number of new batteries to the grid, and on Jan. 13, these services purchased Alberta a couple of extra hours of electrical energy earlier than the alert wanted to be despatched out. If we had extra battery storage, the grid alert possible may have been averted. In lots of circumstances, hydro has inherent vitality storage potential, too, so having extra interties with B.C. would assist us use that as nicely.
Automating demand-side administration measures is one other regulatory space that Alberta would profit from modernizing. Within the grid message, we have been suggested to delay the usage of main home equipment and switch off pointless ones. Electrical grids all over the world are incorporating demand response features that might automate a few of the actions steered. One electrical utility is testing time-of-use charges in Grande Prairie, although Ontario has confirmed for years that this method helps handle the grid.
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Alberta must plan long-term to proactively deal with the challenges that can come up in years to return. Whereas extra fuel technology is coming, critical, detailed plans are wanted to abate their emissions. Prioritizing interties and vitality storage are two easy actions Alberta may take instantly to extend grid reliability. Renewables might help, too, by offering further sources of vitality and supporting a better grid. For instance, wind and photo voltaic vitality are fuel-saving, cost-effective applied sciences that may cut back family electrical energy payments by as much as $600 per yr.
Whereas we wanted fuel that Saturday, and there stays a job for fuel with carbon seize applied sciences on a net-zero grid, solar energy supplied substantial electrical energy through the day. Ending the pause on renewable vitality approvals and accelerating their deployment – a number one supply of exterior funding into Alberta – must be a precedence for the federal government.
It’s as much as Alberta to construct a clear, reasonably priced, and dependable grid, aligning itself with worldwide requirements and peer jurisdictions. The federal government is aware of lots of the options and there may be ample analysis from which they will draw. However the authorities wants to start out performing on these options fairly than muddling public understanding and politicizing the difficulty. Alberta must work with different provinces and the federal authorities to create a grid that’s dependable, reasonably priced, and clear.
Scott MacDougall is the director of Pembina’s electrical energy program and has intensive expertise engaged on Alberta local weather coverage and regulation and within the sustainability and clear vitality sector.
Jason Wang is a senior analyst with Pembina’s electrical energy program and has years of expertise engaged on electrical energy and local weather coverage in Alberta’s vitality business and with the Authorities of Alberta.
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