Low wind power in Saskatchewan as cold drives up electricity demand

Brian Zinchuk

Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online

Wind on Tuesday made up just one per cent of total power production, just as the cold weather has driven up demand. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

The current cold snap is showing up in SaskPower’s daily numbers, as wind power production fell substantially on Dec. 20.

And, as usual, what happens in Alberta weatherwise is usually what happens here the following day.

In order to protect proprietary data, SaskPower delays its reporting of power production by two days. It also doesn’t give out nearly the detail the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) provides.

Power production in Saskatchewan on Tuesday, Dec. 20. SaskPower

On Tuesday, Dec. 20, SaskPower saw just 1 per cent of its power production come from wind, whereas in recent days that number has been in the six to 10 per cent range.

Wind power production averaged just 39 megawatts, out of a nameplate capacity of 617 megawatts. That’s an average of 6.3 per cent of nameplate capacity.

But as an average, that means that there were times wind power production fell below that 39 megawatts.

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In recent days, natural gas and coal have been trading places for the top form of power production in Saskatchewan. On Dec. 20, it was natural gas, with 1,472 megawatts average throughout the day, accounting for 42 per cent of total generation.

Coal was running flat out as well, producing and average of 1,413 megawatts, or 40 per cent of total power production. That’s actually higher than the 1,389 megawatts listed on SaskPower’s website for the three coal-fired power stations, but then again, SaskPower has continued to use Boundary Dam Unit 4, despite it was supposedly retired at the end of 2021.

Hydro produced an average of 419 megawatts, for 12 per cent of total power. “Other,” which includes small scale wind and solar, as well as heat recovery from pipelines, was an average of 197 megawatts, of 6 per cent of total power production.

The 30 megawatts of installed solar power produced an average of one megawatt throughout the day, the second shortest of the year. As a percentage of total power production, it was negligible.

Overall, SaskPower generated a total of 3,542 megawatts on average throughout the day. We used 3,430 megawatts ourselves, and exported 112 megawatts. Alberta has been regularly importing power from Saskatchewan.

We are nearing the one-year anniversary of a power use record, which was established on Dec. 30, 2021. On that day, SaskPower hit a usage record of 3,910 megawatts. Daily usage in recent days has been creeping every closer to that mark. Alberta hit its own power usage records on Monday and then again on Wednesday of this week.

• 0079 Ministry of Energy Business_incentive PO
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• 0078 LHOS 2024
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• 0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
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• 0053 Kingston Midstream Westspur Alameda
  0053 Kingston Midstream Westspur Alameda
• 0076 Latus only
  0076 Latus only
• 0073 SaskWorks-Pipeline Online
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• 0063 Turnbull Excavating hiring crusher
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• 0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
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• 0058 Royal Helium Steveville opens anonymous rocket
  0058 Royal Helium Steveville opens anonymous rocket
• 0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
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• 0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
  0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
• 0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
  0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
• 0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan
  0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan
• 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
• 0011
• 0006 JK Junior
• 0002 gilliss casing services
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• 9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
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