Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Alberta has one of the most dynamic electrical grids in the country, in large part because it’s a deregulated grid. That means that independent power producers can sell power into the grid, and they have in turn chosen a wide variety of power generation method. From natural gas to solar, wind to hydro, biomass to batteries, Alberta’s got pretty much everything except coal and nuclear. And that mix changes by the minute, depending on the weather, time of day, and demand.
X account @ReliableAB logs the publicly available data from the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), logging data points every hour and posts the data to X every second hour (due to posting limitations imposed by X). Here’s what the month of April looked like. Pay close attention to the huge variances in both wind and solar generation. Solar, of course, hits zero every night. But during the day it also can get close to its nameplate capacity. Wind, on the other hand rarely gets close to 80 per cent, and occasionally drops to next to nothing. Natural gas, hydro, and occasionally batteries pick up the slack.
Pay special attention to the gas readings, and how close they get to the black bar showing total generation at that time. Ask yourself what would happen without natural gas-fired generation? There are times when it makes up over 90% of total generation. The federal Clean Electricity Regulations mean to do away with all of that gas generation, unless it has carbon capture with standards that are currently unreachable. Those regulations, unless changed mean natural gas-fired generation will be done away with in 24 years, seven months and 18 days.
Check it out.
- 0053 Kingston Midstream Westspur Alameda Click Before You Dig0053 Kingston Midstream Westspur Alameda Click Before You Dig
- 0092 Turnbull projects big and small0092 Turnbull projects big and small
- 0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan Teaser0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan Teaser
- 0087 Lori Carr Coal Expansion0087 Lori Carr Coal Expansion
- 0086 Sask Gov Oil and Gas Incentive Programs0086 Sask Gov Oil and Gas Incentive Programs
- 0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
- 0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
- 0076 Latus only0076 Latus only
- 0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
- 0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
- 0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
- 0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
- 0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build0041 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 services0002 gilliss casing services
- 9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
- 9001