Brian Zinchuk: How messing with power pricing will get the Alberta UCP unelected in a few easy steps.
Some poor bastards, also known as the Alberta ratepayers and Alberta industry, get to pay those rates. And just as sometimes the wholesale price goes to $999.99 per megawatt-hour now, it will go to $2999.99 per megawatt-hour in 2032. And somebody has to pay that. If you live in Wild Rose country, that somebody will be you.
Oh, and the NDP point out, correctly, that oil prices are a lot lower than the Saskatchewan budget predicted.
Build lots of natural gas peaker plants (screw the feds) and move toward nuclear….stay away from wind and solar. They are death traps.
Just build more coal plants
The former coal-fired operation at Wabamun lake at one time provided 2/3 of the provinces electricity. If the transmission infrastructure is still there and usable or upgradeable, it would be a good home for a large nuke.
I am not sure why the communists, when in power, didn’t go back to regulated rates. About 30 years ago Alberta had among the lowest priced electricity in North America. Then the idiot King Ralph was going to save us tons of money by having competitive rates. Almost immediately with the help of moral leaders including Enron, prices went up six times. They were so high the government stepped in and paid the bill which consumers had to repay after the price went down. The whole process was a scam and I suspect it still is. During peak pricing, BC Hydro sells as much power as it can to Alberta. At low pricing, BC idles the dams and buys as much as they can from Alberta. The whole Alberta electrical market is pure stupidity.
You perfectly characterized BC’s behaviour. Saskatchewan would do the same, if its sole interconnect hadn’t been down for about a year now. Last I heard, it won’t be back up until December. Otherwise, we’d be selling high and buying low from Alberta as well.