Why did Alberta pause new wind and solar projects? Premier says feds | 24CA News
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says Ottawa is among the the explanation why her authorities has positioned a moratorium on approving new wind and solar energy initiatives, arguing the feds are stopping growth of backup technology for renewable power like pure fuel.
Smith, whose authorities shocked the province’s renewable power business final week by saying a six-month freeze on new initiatives better than one megawatt, informed her provincewide radio call-in program Saturday that backup crops powered by pure fuel are wanted for when wind isn’t blowing or the solar isn’t shining.
But, she stated, the federal authorities doesn’t need Alberta so as to add any new pure fuel electrical energy crops to the grid.
“So I’ve told them, how can I bring on additional wind and solar if I’m not able to secure the reliability of my power grid by being able to bring on natural gas peaker plants? That’s the heart of the problem,” Smith stated.
“No one is proposing any new natural gas plants because the federal government has created so much uncertainty in the market.”
The rationale was complicated for an power market economist, in addition to a consultant of a renewable power business group, who stated there isn’t a requirement in Alberta’s marketplace for turbines to have the ability to provide energy 24-7.
“If somebody adds solar to the grid, you don’t need to add backup to compensate for it,” stated Andrew Leach, a University of Alberta power economist. “It just adds a source of cheap electricity for times when it is sunny outside.”
“Essentially, you bring your power to the market every hour and see what it sells for.”
Leach stated it’s attainable the addition of low-cost wind and photo voltaic power might discourage natural-gas powered initiatives by reducing the worth of electrical energy. But he stated the reverse can be true — that fossil gas initiatives might discourage inexperienced ones.
He additionally stated Alberta’s power market, by legislation, operates on free and open competitors.
Vittoria Bellissimo of the Canadian Renewable Energy Association stated the province ought to take away impediments to power storage initiatives, like tariffs that she stated might deal with storage suppliers the identical as power customers or turbines, in addition to requiring them to purchase power when in truth they’re solely storing it.
That approach, she stated inexperienced power from photo voltaic and wind could possibly be saved and launched when it’s wanted.
“The premier and others are under the impression that you have to have natural gas to make the system work, but you don’t. You need any type of resources that can time shift, and there’s lots of them out there,” she stated.
In a press release Thursday when the moratorium on new initiatives was introduced, the federal government stated the Alberta Utilities Commission would provoke an inquiry into problems with growth on agricultural land, impact on surroundings, reclamation safety, the position of municipalities and system reliability.
Alberta has been a pacesetter in renewable power growth in Canada. In 2022, 17 per cent of its energy got here from wind and photo voltaic — exceeding the province’s 15 per cent objective.
Nathan Neudorf, minister of affordability and utilities, admitted the moratorium can be “a little bit of inconvenience now for the next few months” however was worthwhile to get issues proper for the long-term.
A consultant of Rural Municipalities Alberta has stated that whereas farmers and municipalities get tax and lease revenues from renewable power, members are involved about attainable cleanup issues, just like points they’ve skilled with deserted oil and fuel wells. They’ve additionally stated they’re involved about agriculture being displaced.
Neudorf stated he didn’t meet with business earlier than the announcement due to scheduling issues.
Smith informed her radio viewers on Saturday {that a} photo voltaic farm in her Brooks-Medicine Hat constituency in southern Alberta was coated for months with ice and snow and wasn’t producing energy.
“When we were in the winter, …several times the grid almost failed because we didn’t have enough power, and you can’t call up wind and solar on demand,” she stated.
Leach countered that some photo voltaic initiatives are constructed in an effort to seize peak summer time sunshine, and puzzled why the province would intervene in the event that they made financial sense for the landowners and energy producers.
“When you stop and think about that for half a second, it’s incredibly ironic because, of course, you’re not growing a lot of canola in the snow and ice, either.”
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