Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Wind turbines near Pincher Creek, Alberta, one year ago on Dec. 1, 2023. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
The number was so low, the calculator put out scientific notation when calculating the percentage of output
Alberta’s 1,722 wind turbines costing many billions of dollars produced 0.39 megawatts at noon on Sunday, Dec. 1, according to data from the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO).
That’s 0.007 per cent of the theoretical nameplate rated output. The number was so low that if you enter those numbers into your Windows calculator app (0.39 megawatts / 5476 megawatts), it will give you the scientific notation of 7.121986851716581e-5. It wasn’t zero, but it wasn’t more than a decent-sized gen set.
This chart from the Alberta Electric System Operator shows the actual wind output, on the left, and forecast for the coming seven days. Actual wind output was 0.39 MW at noon on Dec. 1. AESO
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Solar was little help
And despite the sun being at its highest point in the sky, solar was only contributing 178.4 megawatts, out of a nameplate capacity of 1,812. That’s 9.8 per cent, when the solar is expected to max out.
X account @ReliableAB provides continuing logging of AESO data, posted every two hours. At 10:59 a.m. on Dec. 1, wind was at 7 megawatts output, or 0.1 per cent. At that moment, natural gas was supplying 10,698 megawatt, or 94.2 per cent of the Alberta grid’s generation at the time. There was next to no power being traded between Alberta and its neighbours at the time, with 4 megawatts coming in from Montana, and 11 megawatts going to BC. In Edmonton, the temperature was -21 C.
Freezing in the dark significance
So why is the 94.2 per cent of power coming from natural gas significant? According to the proposed federal Clean Electricity Regulations, by 2035, all fossil fuel-fired power, including natural gas, must have carbon capture units implemented, otherwise they will only be allowed to operated a total of 450 hours per year. That means by Jan. 19, it is quite possible that then entire allotment of “unabated” hours of operation will be used up. In this real world situation, in December, if those rules were in place today, they would have prohibited the production of 94.2 per cent of the power Albertans needed to fend off the -21 C temperatures. If implemented, those rules will come into full effect in 10 years and 29 days.
And the most likely prospect of commercial-scale carbon capture to be implemented on natural gas-fired power plant, Genessee, was canceled this past June. Thus, almost the entirety of the Alberta grid output on Dec. 1 will have to be replaced by power generation that doesn’t emit greenhouse gasses, or carbon capture installed on it, in those 10 years and 29 days.
As for Saskatchewan, SaskPower has committed to adding 3,000 megawatts of wind and solar by 2035, which is roughly the amount of power the entire Saskatchewan grid consumes on a fall day. On a colder day, such as Nov. 30, the grid generated an average of 3,369 megawatts over 24 hours. Between its wind and solar, Alberta has already installed more than double that – 7,288 megawatts combined of wind and solar, and as noted above, its output on a moderately cold day was 178.8 megawatts at noon, meaning that if Saskatchewan had built the equivalent of the 49 wind farms and 44 solar farms Alberta has built, it could still end up with less power available than just one coal-fired unit like Shand Power Station.
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