Alberta Premier Rachel Notley\u2019s plan, like McGuinty\u2019s, is to phase out all of Alberta\u2019s cheap, abundant but terribly uncool coal-fired power (by 2030, in Alberta’s case) and force onto the grid instead large amounts of unreliable, expensive solar and wind power. Albertans have been so preoccupied fighting through a barrage of energy woes since Notley\u2019s NDP was elected \u2014 the oil-price crash, government-imposed carbon taxes and emission caps, blocked and cancelled pipelines and the Trudeau government\u2019s wholesale politicization of energy regulation \u2014 that they probably haven\u2019t realized yet how vast an overhaul Notley was talking about when she began revealing this plan in 2015. But the report\u2019s author, Brian Livingston, an engineer and lawyer with deep experience in the energy business in Alberta, runs through the shocking numbers: As of last year, Alberta\u2019s grid had a capacity of roughly 17,000 megawatts, but the envisioned grid of 2032 will require nearly 13,000 megawatts that do not currently exist. Think of it as rebuilding 75 per cent of Alberta\u2019s current grid in less than 15 years. Hey, what could go wrong?<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/wpmedia.business.financialpost.com\/2018\/04\/wind.jpg?w=640&h=266\")
<\/p>\nAlberta Electricity System Operator is planning for so much wind power that the province will blow past Ontario, a province three times its size.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
And if Ontarians thought their government was obsessed with green power, Livingston notes that the Alberta Electricity System Operator is planning for so much wind power that the province will blow past Ontario, a province three times its size, with 5,000 megawatts of wind compared to Ontario\u2019s 4,213 megawatts, and nearly twice as much solar power, 700 megawatts, compared to Ontario\u2019s 380 megawatts.<\/p>\n
Learning from McGuinty\u2019s mistake, the Alberta NDP is smart enough to ensure the extra cost of all this uneconomic power won\u2019t show up printed in black and white on consumers\u2019 power bills, likely hoping that spares them the political fallout that now threatens the Ontario Liberals. Rather than ratepayers shouldering the pain, it will be taxpayers \u2014 largely the same people \u2014 who pay most for any additional costs through added deficits and debts, at least for the next few years. That\u2019s because Notley has ordered a temporary cap on household electricity rates of 6.8 cents per kilowatt hour (which is still significantly higher than the current rate). When wholesale rates rise higher than that, the government will use carbon-tax revenues to pay the difference. But businesses pay full freight from the get go.<\/p>\n
Hiding from the real costs of using energy is a curious move for a government that gives away energy-efficient lightbulbs and other products designed to conserve while imposing carbon taxes to try suppressing energy use. It\u2019s also a costly move. Estimates from the C. D. Howe Institute estimate it will cost Alberta taxpayers up to $50 million this year alone; a recent report from electricity consultants at EDC Associates estimates that by 2021, the extra costs moved off electric bills and onto tax bills will total $700 million. That\u2019s when the price cap expires and costs could start showing up on power bills, instead.<\/p>\n
Of course, Ontario has proven that it\u2019s easy to underestimate how expensive these political experiments can get, but the Alberta redesign is already getting pricey. First, Notley accidentally stuck Alberta consumers with nearly $2 billion in extra surcharges when she rewrote carbon policies without realizing that gave producers the right to cancel unprofitable contracts. Her plan also requires the government to create a new \u201ccapacity\u201d payment system for electricity producers, who will able to charge substantial sums even if they don\u2019t produce a single watt. Livingston shows that many producers can earn almost as much just for offering capacity to the grid as they do for producing. Meanwhile, since solar power is perennially and embarrassingly uncompetitive economically, even with expensive wind power, the government plans to let solar providers sell electricity at premium rates to government facilities, with taxpayers covering that cost, too, just as they\u2019ll cover the cost of overpriced wind power, which doesn\u2019t approach the affordability of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n
In his report, Livingston drily notes that the way Albertans think of the future of their electricity system could probably be summed up as: \u201cWhatever we do here in Alberta, please let us not do it like they did it in Ontario.\u201d Since Albertans pay around five cents a kilowatt hour \u2014 compared to the up to 18 cents Ontarians experienced \u2014 they have reason to fear. It won\u2019t be exactly the way they did things in Ontario, but that doesn\u2019t mean it still can\u2019t go very wrong. Wherever progressive politics infests an electrical grid, people always pay for it in the end.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Get ready, Alberta, a new report reveals that all the thrills and spills that follow when politicians start meddling in a boring, but well-functioning electricity market are coming your way<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}