Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
On the horizon is the Bekevar Yotin Wind Facility, which was churning hard at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, May 28, as seen from the Warmley area. In the foreground is a Stampede Drilling rig, racked at the time. SaskPower workers just happened to be patrolling along the transmission line right of way at the time. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
REGINA, WARMLEY – A combination of factors led SaskPower to ask some of its large customers to reduce their power consumption on Wednesday, May 28. And the same day saw wind output fall in Alberta to 0.2 per cent capacity.
SaskPower’s woes came on a day where wind generation was low in this province and Alberta, where wind generation hovered well below 2 per cent output much of the day. And that, combined with issues at coal and natural gas plants producing reduced power meant SaskPower had to initiate its ‘demand response’ agreements, a form of load shedding.
SaskPower spokesperson Joel Cherry said in an email on May 29, “Yesterday we averaged about 200 megawatts of wind, with the highest winds in the early morning and late evening. Wind dropped off in the middle of the day and was at an average of 50 – 70 megawatts mid to late afternoon.”
SaskPower currently has 817 megawatts of grid-scale wind nameplate capacity. In recent days it has been producing significant amounts, averaging 375 megawatts on May 27, and 556 megawatts on May 26. But that wasn’t the case on May 28.
“The low wind in the afternoon and mechanical issues at some of our coal and natural gas plants necessitated some demand response measures. Our demand response agreements are confidential, so we are unable to discuss specifics,” Cherry said.
Springtime also is “shoulder season,” when a lot of heavy maintenance is done as demand is typically less than the hottest days in summer or coldest days of winter.
Pipeline Online happened to be relatively close to the Bekevar Yotin Wind Facility around 4 p.m. on Wednesday when we got wind, as it were, there were issues with the grid. A short jaunt to the peak of the Moose Mountains at Warmley, due north of Kisbey to be within binoculars range showed that all but three of the 27 turbines visible at Bekevar were turning. (There are 36 turbines in total there, but not all were visible.) There was ample south wind from that location at the time. That, in turn, indicates that the bulk of the wind facilities to the west would have been producing minimal output at the time, because clearly Bekevar was producing power.
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Alberta’s minimal wind day
As a mass of essentially dead air progressed eastward into Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan’s wind output fell, as indicated above. How dead was it?
On the same day, wind output in Alberta flatlined. X account @ReliableAB logs the data from the Alberta Electric System Operator, posting every two hours on X.
Starting in the evening of Tuesday, May 27, wind was below 10 per cent capacity, and slowly fell throughout the night into May 28. By 4:59 a.m., wind output fell to 105 out of 5,688 megawatts, or 1.8 percent capacity. Since it was early in the morning, solar was at 23 megawatts or 23 out of 1,825 megawatts. But demand was also low at the time, with just 8,741 megawatts of load.
As the hours progressed, solar climbed but wind flatlined. By 6:59 a.m. wind was at 81 megawatts or 1.4 per cent capacity. Solar had climbed to 32.7 per cent capacity.
At 8:59 a.m., wind was down to 11 megawatts out of 5,688, or 0.2 per cent capacity. Solar was now at 1,489 megawatts, or 81.9 per cent.
At this moment 78.6% of Alberta's electricity is being produced by fossil fuels. Wind is at 0.2% of capacity and producing 0.1% of total generation, while solar is at 81.9% of capacity and producing 15.5% of total generation. At the same time, we are importing 206 MW, which is… pic.twitter.com/bYZjpEIYcT
— Reliable AB Energy (@ReliableAB) May 28, 2025
Wind climbed slightly, to 66 megawatts, or 1.2 per cent capacity, by 10:59 a.m., while solar was now 93.4 per cent, or 1,704 megawatts.
At 12:59, wind was 60 megawatts, or 1.1 per cent capacity. Solar was at 93.9 per cent. Two hours later wind was at 1.9 per cent, or 108 megawatts, while solar was peaking at 95.2 per cent, or 1,737 megawatts.
As the afternoon progressed into the evening, wind ever-so-slowly crept up, to 3 per cent, then 6.6 per cent and finally 10.4 per cent by 8:59 p.m.
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