A month to the day after Saskatchewan announces its keeping coal, Alberta wind falls to 1.4% capacity

Brian Zinchuk

Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online

Wind turbines near Drumheller on Aug. 7, 2024. Photo by Katrina Zinchuk

A month to the day after Saskatchewan announces its keeping coal, Alberta wind power generation output fell to 1.4% of nameplate capacity.

That was just 80 megawatts out of a nameplate capacity of 5,688 megawatts.

That’s according to data from the Alberta Electric System Operator and logged by X account @ReliableAB.

“At this moment, 18-Jul-2025 @ 08:59, 81.4% of Alberta’s electricity is being produced by fossil fuels. Wind is at 1.4% of capacity and producing 0.8% of total generation, while solar is at 74.4% of capacity and producing 13.1% of total generation. At the same time, we are exporting 394 MW, which is 3.8% of the total generation of 10362 MW,” @ReliableAB said.

Graphic courtesy @ReliableAB

Wind power generation in Saskatchewan is considered low-cost, with a recent wind project providing some detail. On May 1, Saskpower announced The 200 megawatt Rose Valley Wind Project will be located east of Assiniboia and operate under a 30-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with the Crown corporation. That project will be built and operated by Potentia Renewables Inc., and its Indigenous partners, Meadow Lake Tribal Council (MLTC) and Mistawasis Nêhiyawak First Nation, will develop, own, and operate a new wind and a new solar facility in south-central Saskatchewan.

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  0098 SASPO-2874_Self Serve Campaign_New Connects_Youtube_v3
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Asked the price of the power, SaskPower president and CEO Rupen Pandya said on May 1 the actual price SaskPower will pay for power is commercially confidential, but he explained, “We had nine bids to the wind RFP for south central Saskatchewan. We had 11 bids for the wind and solar bid into south central Saskatchewan. I can tell you that the average cost of energy under the wind bids was $64 per megawatt-hour, and I can tell you that the deal that we’ve just secured is lower than that. And then on the solar front, the average cost of power for the 11 bids was around $90 per megawatt-hour. And again, the winning bids, the consortium here today, this one is below that as well.”

That works out to less than 6.4 cents per kilowatt-hour for the wind project, and less than 9 cents per kilowatt-hour for the solar project. The current rate for retail residential in Saskatchewan is 14.895 cents per kilowatt-hour.

However, it is episodes like the one on July 18, when wind output falls to next to zero, that was one of the prime considerations when the provincial government, through SaskPower, announced it was going to refurbish Saskatchewan’s coal-fired generation fleet as a bridge to nuclear power generation.

“Renewables play an important role in our grid, and they will continue to, but they are no substitute for baseload generation,” Minister of Crown Investments Corp Jeremy Harrison wrote in his letter of June 18 to SaskPower employees.

He went into greater depth while speaking to the Pipeline Online Podcast on June 20. Here’s an excerpt:

• 0098 SASPO-2874_Self Serve Campaign_New Connects_Youtube_v3
  0098 SASPO-2874_Self Serve Campaign_New Connects_Youtube_v3
• 0100 Turnbull Project Manager
  0100 Turnbull Project Manager
• 0099 Mryglod Steel 1080p
  0099 Mryglod Steel 1080p
• 0097 Eagle Sky Ventures LTD
  0097 Eagle Sky Ventures LTD
• 0095 Fast Trucking nearly 70 years good at it
  0095 Fast Trucking nearly 70 years good at it
• 0053 Kingston Midstream Westspur Alameda Click Before You Dig
  0053 Kingston Midstream Westspur Alameda Click Before You Dig
• 0092 Turnbull projects big and small
  0092 Turnbull projects big and small
• 0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan Teaser
  0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan Teaser
• 0087 Lori Carr Coal Expansion
  0087 Lori Carr Coal Expansion
• 0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
  0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
• 0076 Latus only
  0076 Latus only
• 0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
  0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
• 0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
  0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
• 0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
  0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
• 0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
  0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
• 0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
  0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
• 0032 IWS Summer hiring rock trailer music
• 0022 Grimes winter hiring
• 0021 OSY Rentals S8 Promo
• 0018 IWS Hiring Royal Summer
• 0013 Panther Drilling PO ad 03 top drive rigs
• 0006 JK Junior
• 0002 gilliss casing services
  0002 gilliss casing services
• 9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
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Coming up Monday on the Pipeline Online Podcast: Getting oil to Hudson Bay

1 p.m. on Monday, July 21, Blaine Mersereau of the Neestanan project is the guest on the Pipeline Online Podcast. That’s the corridor to a new port on Hudson Bay at Port Nelson which has the support of many First Nations. Hudson Bay is getting a lot of attention, and we’re going to dig into it. Watch live on X, YouTube or Facebook. Here’s the promo: