Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Wind turbines in southern Alberta at Pincher Creek. This project is supposed to use these wind turbines to charge a grid-scale battery. But for most of the previous six days, they produced zero power at all, which would make it tough to charge that battery if wind, alone, was all that charged it. Photo by Clive Schaupmeyer
13 of 38 wind farms produce 1 megawatt, or less (as in zero) for 24 hours
Alberta saw another day of poor wind power production, with 10 hours during the day where the 3,853 megawatts of wind was producing less than 100 megawatts.
X bot account @ReliableAB posts hourly updates of data posted by the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO). Starting at 11:39 a.m, Alberta’s wind fell to 88 megawatts, or 2.3 per cent of installed capacity. And as this was just before noon, it’s fitting to note that the province’s solar power production, which should have been near or at peak capacity, was just 211 megawatts out of 1,373 megawatts – just 15.4 per cent capacity.
At that moment, none of Alberta’s seven batteries were supplying power to the grid, but the province was importing 365 megawatts of power from British Columbia and Montana.
At this moment 92.9% of Alberta's electricity is being produced by fossil fuels. Wind is at 2.3% of capacity and producing 0.9% of total generation, while solar is at 15.4% of capacity and producing 2.11% of total generation. At the same time we are importing 365 MW or 4% pic.twitter.com/VvdXSbLcYh
— Reliable AB Energy (@ReliableAB) October 25, 2023
By 1:38 p.m., wind had fallen to 56 megawatts, or 1.5 per cent capacity. Solar had gained a bit, to 280 megawatts, or 20.4 per cent capacity. The last remaining coal plant was operating at 810 megawatts out of 820, or 98.8 per cent capacity. At that point, coal was producing 14.5x the output of all of Alberta’s wind farms, combined.
At this moment 91.4% of Alberta's electricity is being produced by fossil fuels. Wind is at 1.5% of capacity and producing 0.6% of total generation, while solar is at 20.4% of capacity and producing 2.81% of total generation. At the same time we are importing 338 MW or 3% pic.twitter.com/mfwPqeYoOE
— Reliable AB Energy (@ReliableAB) October 25, 2023
At 4:39 p.m., wind had fallen to 44 megawatts, its low point for the day as recorded by @ReliableAB. Solar was at 254 megawatts, or 19.2 per cent capacity. Coal was at 98.4 per cent, or 807 megawatts. At this point, the one coal plant was producing the equivalent of 18.3x the total fleet of wind turbines across 38 wind farms in Alberta.
It was only at 9:39 p.m., 10 hours later, that wind power cross the 100 megawatt threshold, to 111 megawatts. At that point wind was producing 3.3 per cent of capacity. But as the sun had long gone down, solar was at zero.
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There’s often a strong correlation between low wind and solar conditions and price spikes, often close to the theoretical maximum of $999.99. And that’s what happened. At 9:30 p.m. the pool price for power was $768.83 per megawatt, having fallen from a peak of $901.25 per megawatt at 7:39 p.m.. For context, At six a.m. the price of power was $68.56 per megawatt.
Also for context, the federal government, through its Clean Electricity Regulations, is pushing the implementation of non-emitting power generation, especially wind and solar. Those regulations would see unabated natural gas power generation prohibited by 2035, allowed to operate only if extremely efficient and costly carbon capture is implemented. Without carbon capture, natural gas power generation would only be allowed to operated for 450 hours per year, an allotment Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said would be used up before the end of January.
SaskPower is on course to add another 3,000 megawatts of wind and solar projects by 2035, to be built and operated by independent power producers.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith started a campaign several weeks ago called “Tell the Feds,” The campaign notes, “No one wants blackouts.
“What Canadians want is reliable & affordable power.
“Ottawa’s proposed electricity regulations will make electricity unreliable & unaffordable.”
The Tell the Feds website also notes, “Why can’t Alberta run on wind and solar alone?
“We are already Canada’s wind and solar leader, and will add a lot of new generation by 2035. But wind and solar are intermittent sources. They don’t produce power when the sun doesn’t shine, or the wind doesn’t blow. When you plug something in you need the electricity to be there – it is not acceptable to not have power because it’s a cloudy day or the wind is calm.
“Alberta’s grid had seven alerts during 2022 during relatively colder months. With electricity demand set to soar by 2050, we need a diverse mix of generation options – intermittent and baseload – to prevent future blackouts and keep a reliable grid.”
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Flatline rundown
Oddly, Dispatcho.App recorded 13 Alberta wind farms producing almost zero power for 24 hours. That’s one third of the wind fleet.
Of these 13, several produced at most 1 megawatt, but some produced exactly zero power all day long.
The Ardenville Wind facility, with 23 wind turbines, produced zero power all day long. (click on any of these hyperlinks to see the data for yourself)
Cowley Ridge produced 1 megawatt for two minutes the entire day, for a facility rated at 20 megawatts.
Similarly, the 196 megawatt Cypress 1 produced 1 megawatt for one minute. And that is one of the largest wind farms in the province, descriped by Dispatcho.app as: “Cypress 1 (CYP1) is a 196 MW wind asset comprised 39 of Siemens-Gamesa SG145 turbines, capable of up to between 5 and 5.2 MW each. Along with its sister asset CYP2, it’s located approximately 20 km southeast of the hamlet of Dumore in Cypress County, AB. It was one of the projects that was part of the Renewable Energy Program (REP) Round 2 contracts. This project is a partnership between EDF Renewables Canada Inc. and Kainai Nation (Blood Tribe).”
Similarly, Cypress 2, a 46 megawatt plant, produced 1 megawatt for one minute.
The 122 megawatt Jenner 1 produced 1 megawatt for one minute.
Kettles Hill produce zero megawatts all day, despite having 36 turbines capable of a total 63 megawatts.
Riverview, which is capable of 105 megawatts, did slightly better. It produced 1 megawatt for one minute, then five minutes, 19 minutes and the, 15 hours later, for another 2 minutes.
The 71 megawatt Soderglen Wind facility produced a flat zero all day long. If you take a look at its 7 day graph, like several of the other previously listed facilities, it was topping out power production on Oct 19, but flatlined for four extended periods throughout the rest of the week.
Stirling Wind, capable of 113 megawatts, produced a singular megawatt for short spurts totaling 18 minutes throughout the day.
Suncor Chin Chute produced 1 megawatt for a total of 7 minutes throughout the day. It’s 20 turbines are capable of 30 megwatts.
Suncor McGrath, located 40 kilometres south of Lethbridge, produced zero power for the entire 24 hours.
Summerview 1, which is tied with the Summerview battery, produced zero power the entire day. Its rated for 39 megawatts and is located near Pincher Creek. (Many of the photos Pipeline Online has used showing Alberta wind are of this facility) It’s immediate neighbour, Summerview 2, is capable of 66 megawatts. It produced 1 megawatt for a total of 24 minutes in the day.
Notably, the Summerview facilities are part of the “WindCharger” project, owned by TransAlta. The idea is wind turbines charge the batteries, but in this case, there was no wind power to charge said batteries. Indeed, for three quarters of the previous six days, there was no wind power produced at all by Summerview 1. The project websites describes it as: “TransAlta has been investigating the viability of battery storage at our various wind farm locations over the past number of years. Our Summerview Wind Farm location was selected for its many desirable features, which are conducive to siting a battery storage facility of this nature. The Project will utilize TESLA battery technology and once built will have a nameplate capacity of 10 MW with total storage capacity of 20 MWh. The Project is situated next to our Summerview Wind Farm substation on previously disturbed lands.”
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