Alberta Electricity Consumers to Reduce Consumption

January 17, 2012 by Walter Schneider.

Today is is fairly cold but not extremely cold in Alberta.  Around Fort McMurray it was about -44°C this morning, and here in Bruderheim it was -30.9°C.

Presently, at 4:00 p.m., it warmed up a bit in Bruderheim to -27.9°C.

That is cold, but those temperatures are not record-cold temperatures. Still, on account of the cold weather, of which we have had fairly little this winter, the Alberta electric power industry experienced record-high consumption rates yesterday and appealed through the media to the public, especially to residential consumers, to limit their electricity consumption by not using major appliances during the peak hours of the day (during noon and supper hours).

Roughly 15 percent of electric power consumed in Alberta is being used by residential consumers.  It was not explained why the inconvenience of saving on electric energy use was placed on residential consumers and whether industrial and commercial consumers are expected to follow suit.  It is a nice thought to press the urgency of the situation home with residential consumers, to prepare them for what will quite possibly follow soon, another rate hike for residential consumers.

There would be no shortage of electric power generation in Alberta if all of the money spend on installing wind-power generation, that without fail fails to put out on cold days, would have been used instead to construct power generating capacity from conventional energy sources, either coal, or, perhaps better yet, from the surplus of natural gas with which we are blessed.  That was not done, and we now have to pay for wind-power generation that is not available when it is needed and, to boot, costs many times per unit of production what power generation construction and production from conventional fuel sources cost.

Have a look at the table “Generation”, at this link: http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market/Reports/CSDReportServlet

The following table has been created from the data shown there for 2012 01 17  4:30 p.m..  Columns have been inserted to identify the percentage for each group of the energy total shown shown in the bottom line for each category.

(Link to source)

MC = rated maximum generation (Maximum Capacity)
TNG = actual generation (Total Net Generation)
DCR = Dispatched (and Accepted) Contingency Reserve

Note that of the total wind-power maximum generating capacity that can be produced under ideal conditions (865MW), at the time when it is needed most only 2.2 percent or 18MW are being generated.  That will happen every time when it gets very cold in Alberta, because then the wind doesn’t blow.

It adds insult to injury that when that little bit of wind energy, in this case 0.2 percent of the total energy produced in Alberta, gets fed into the transmission grid, it is by far and many times more expensive than what the price of electric energy usually is.

Usually energy that is being fed into the transmission grid will cost about $23.00 per MWh, but the wind power that is being fed into the grid when it is needed during very cold weather costs around $1,000 per MWh or $1.00 per kWh.  That is the cost that everyone else involved in the industry will escalate by adding their costs for transmission, distribution and distribution services.  The end consumers will have to pay for all of it but will not notice much of that, because the price to them will be averaged out, but it will still be paid by them.

Even under the best of circumstances Alberta’s wind turbines only feed about one-third of the energy they are theoretically capable of producing into the transmission grid.  When the wind blows too strong, wind turbines are shut off (they are supposed to do that automatically) to prevent having tear themselves to shreds.

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