Two days before Alberta is to lift its renewables pause, wind output falls to zero. Real reliable, that wind.
So they’ve built 45 wind farms so far, and they, in total, produced zero power. If they built 450, would that solve the problem?
And no, they’re not built with taxpayer dollars. But many are built for credits of all sorts.
It turns out, quite a long time.
One (megawatt) is the loneliest number, but hundreds of batteries are absurd. (Actually, thousands)
At 8:30 a.m., Feb. 7, 44 out of 45 wind farms in Alberta could not perform. You are not alone. But there is a solution.
Two gensets in sea cans could have matched the output of Alberta’s entire wind fleet Wednesday morning
Second day in a row, Alberta’s wind power utterly collapes. Had to relearn how to interpret scientific notation for this one. What does 6.694934166480696e-4 mean? Something like 0.07 per cent of nameplate output? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 42 times, shame on me, as only 3 of Alberta’s 45 wind farms produced power at points of Monday night
A few weeks after Alberta’s grid was on the brink, renewables again bottom out, but no crisis this time. Good thing it was -6 C instead of -35 C, eh? And solar didn’t do much either, because a. it snowed and b. the sun went down. Imagine that.
Also: Brian Crossman: Magic Eight Ball prediction edition for 2024. “Will the current Prime Minister continue to be a dumpster fire?” “SIGNS POINT TO YES.”
The past weekend proved to be a close-run thing for the Alberta electrical grid, and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is making statements resolving he won’t allow that to happen here.
Specifically, after having nearly completely divested itself of coal-fired power production, Alberta’s dramatic buildout of wind and solar proved impossible to keep the lights on in that province when the chips were down and temperatures hit -35 C, or worse.
Alberta’s close brush with possible rolling blackouts stiffens Moe’s resolve to keep the lights on. On Monday, he announced that SaskPower has relit a shuttered coal unit near Estevan, one the feds had supposedly forced to retire Dec. 31, 2021.
Also note: Saskatchewan has about a million cars registered. So a good bet is Alberta probably has four million. What would have happened if four million EVs were all plugged in last weekend?
If you missed them, these five stories, in order, chronicle what happened in Alberta.
Most of Alberta’s wind fleet slowly shut down Thursday night, but not for lack of wind
Grid Alert 1:
Alberta goes under grid alert for just under 5 hours on Jan. 12
Grid Alert 2:
Grid Alert 3:
Alberta goes into Round 3, with its third electrical grid alert in three days
Grid Alert 4:
Round 4: Alberta declares fourth electrical grid alert in 4 days, second in 17 hours
For the third day in a row, Alberta went into an electrical grid alert on Sunday. At one point it had no contingency reserve left at all, but imports from BC appeared to save the day. While it looked a little hairy there for a bit, there was no emergency alert declared, unlike Saturday.
Did I mention before that Alberta has more coal, oil and natural gas than God? Because guess what? It still does.
Alberta’s electrical grid stood at the brink of blackouts Jan. 13, before pulling back in the nick of time.
It was the second evening in a row Alberta saw “grid alert” issued, but this time, it was a much closer-run thing.
Alberta’s electrical grid was in such peril of falling into rotating blackouts on Saturday night, the provincial government urged people to even turn off their bathroom fans, among other things.
Also, from Western Standard:
STIRLING: When magical thinking meets a polar vortex cold, hard reality follows
Alberta went under grid alert for just under 5 hours on Jan. 12. And yes, the AESO suggested people shouldn’t run their dishwashers. Alberta has more coal, oil and gas than God, because God gave all his to Alberta, and people there shouldn’t have washed their dishes lest the lights go out. That is no word of a lie. I was up all evening monitoring it, as you’ll see in the story.
And all of this is before four million Albertans are forced to buy electric cars and pickups.
Also:
It looks like Trans Mountain might, indeed be allowed to finish the darn pipeline in weeks instead of years. That is, unless they find another hummingbird on the right of way. The Canada Energy Regulator apparently removed its head from its posterior.
Canadian Press story on record cold in BC, AB.
Most of Alberta’s wind fleet slowly shut down Thursday night, but not for lack of wind.
And by 7:28 a.m., as -31 C covered most of the wind generating areas, wind power generation fell to less than 1 per cent, again.
How exactly did Alberta end up with $0 power on Dec. 26? Alberta Electric System Operator explains
UPDATED: For seven days in a row, SaskPower saw wind generation hit zero for part of the day
The story originally said five days. SaskPower got back to me and noted the streak continued Jan. 7 and 8 as well. So that’s a whole week with wind flatlining. Total, complete flatline for part of the day, each day. How do you power the hospital my wife is an ER nurse at with zero power? Inquiring minds would like to know?
Also:
Weaker oil prices should bring some relief to consumers in 2024: Analysts
and
Quick Dick McDick: Saskatchewan Winterfront Regulation
Bonus points for Quick Dick’s instruction on how to use the box from a Pilsner 2-4 for a winterfront. Nothing says Saskatchewan like a Pil box on your pickup
It’s starting to get cold out. The sun was down and Alberta’s wind power generation fell to next to nothing last night – less than half a per cent capacity.
Meanwhile in Saskatchewan, we’ve had several days of minimal wind power generation.
In other news, they’ve started to bring in floating accommodations for the staff to build the Woodfibre LNG facility.
And Precision Drilling meets debt reduction goal, on track to repay $500 million by 2025.
Wind power flatlined in Saskatchewan on Jan. 2, after days of strong winds. Flatlined, as in zero power, at night, so no solar, either.
Zero reliability, this wind thing. And I had to start wearing my parka this week, too.
Put our trust in wind, and we’ll all freeze. In the dark.
Also, switching to third person:
Pipeline Online editor and owner Brian Zinchuk is back on the air with CJME/CKOM’s Evan Bray Show. He was on the air for a full hour on Wednesday, Jan. 3. Here’s the podcast of that appearance, including responses to several calls. One was on whether or not the Trans Mountain Expansion will ever be finished. (With the ads and news breaks removed, it’s only 35 minutes).
The problem with no one making money is that no one is making money.
Wind bottoms out across 14 states in Southwest Power Pool SPP on Dec. 22
That also meant that of any electrons coming across the border at that time, if SaskPower was buying any power from SPP, 83.4 per cent of that power would have been coming from coal and natural gas, and would not have had a carbon tax applied to it.
Clean Electricity Regulations proposed by the federal government mean to totally change our nation and its economy. And nuclear power is really the only option Saskatchewan has for large-scale, baseload power that does not emit greenhouse gasses.
Part 3 discusses the Clean Electricity Regulations and their impact, and widespread adoption of nuclear power