The fraction of Alberta’s wind power generation capacity put out on Saturday, March 11.
We would have needed a whole lot of those spinny things on Feb. 23
On Feb. 23, when wind power generation produced an average of 10 megawatts throughout the day, you would have needed two wind turbines covering every single square mile south of Gravelbourg, from the Alberta to Manitoba borders, to provide the same amount of power as natural gas and coal did that day. Or, you could have around 10 reactors.
Alberta’s wind power failed, yet again, on Thursday
Alberta wind generation fell to 0.3 per cent capacity at supper last night. And the batteries that are supposed to back them up? Yeah, in the last 30 days, they output power a cumulative 0.09 per cent. That’s not 9 out of 100. That’s 9 out of 10,000. But the public thinks they will be used every night when the sun goes down or the wind doesn’t blow.
Wonder how SaskPower’s doing? We won’t be told for another two days.
Two days in a row, wind power was negative in Sask
The fog and calm winds have not gone away. Four days in a row, wind power in Saskatchewan was either negligible or negative. Two of those days were negative.
And remember that SaskPower is beefing up its interconnect to North Dakota and the Southwest Power Pool, from 150 to 650 megawatts? Well, as of 12:15 a.m., SPP’s power was 45% coal. So we will give up coal power here, and have option to buy coal power from the US. Because that’s what they rely on when the wind decides not to blow there, either.
Wind power production in Saskatchewan went into negative territory
Turns out there’s a new development out of the story that took place on Monday.
Justin Trudeau on Monday didn’t think much of Saskatchewan’s clean energy projects.
On that very day, characterized by fog throughout much of southern Saskatchewan (where the wind turbines are located), SaskPower’s total wind power generation fell to “-1 megawatt,” as in negative one megawatt, according to the Crown corporation’s Where Does Your Power Come From web page. This is the lowest number Pipeline Online has seen since the page went online in September, 2022. It’s also an average throughout the entire day, not just at a particular moment.
According to SaskPower, “The turbines were iced up and unable to produce. The -1 megawatt was load to service the facilities.”
Saskatchewan has 617 megawatts of installed grid-scale wind power generation.
Also, SaskPower is now paying people extra just to stay in Coronach instead of walking away early from the doomed coal plant.
Just as the world cries out for Canadian LNG, “No business case” Trudeau has totally failed us
First Germany comes to Canada, looking for LNG (liquefied natural gas). Then Japan. And we have nothing to give them. Why?
Justin Trudeau. That’s why. And his merry band of anti-energy protestors and ministers.
While the US has moved fast and hard to get LNG export facilities in place over the last decade, Canada has dragged its feet and stubbed its toe. We let protestors (Coastal GasLink), provincial governments (Quebec) and the federal government (Energie Saguenay) get in the way. Now, while the world is crying for LNG from Canada, we have nothing – NOTHING – to give them.
What else would you expect from a government who killed the Northern Gateway and Energy East pipelines? That scared off Teck from its $20 billion Frontier oil sands project? That hardly whimpered when Biden killed Keystone XL?
The only way this will change is if we have a change in government in Ottawa, and a change in attitude in this nation. We can’t be Can’tada any longer. The world needs us.
What more can Saskatchewan do to keep the lights on?
On Sunday, 42% of our power came from natural gas, and 41% came from coal. Another 12% came from hydro.
1% came from wind
Ottawa, we have a problem.
Wind in Sask produced an average of 1.3% of its capacity on Wednesday
It turns out that the same day Alberta’s wind power flatlined, so did Saskatchewan’s. SaskPower delays its data reporting two days, which is why it took until Friday to find this out. Note that the 1.3 per cent output was the average for the entire day, meaning that it was even lower for part of the day.
Giant fans didn’t spin too much on Tuesday in the land of living skies
On Tuesday, we didn’t get much in the way of wind power generation, again.
Alberta coffee makers were not powered by wind Wednesday morning, as wind power collapsed, again
Alberta’s electrical grid, with 3,618 megawatts of installed wind generation, was getting just 19 megawatts from wind at 7:26 a.m. on Wednesday. This is after several grid alerts in late November and throughout December.
Year end with Premier Scott Moe, Part 1: energy security, war, wind, solar and coal
There’s no fluff questions in this year-end interview with Premier Scott Moe. Part one focuses on energy security, the war in Ukraine, wind, solar and coal power.
There are four parts to this interview, to be published this week. Watch for them.
Cold means less wind, more power demand in Sask
Alberta’s seen its power grid struggle in recent days as cold weather has meant substantially less wind production while demand has spiked.
Well, Saskatchewan is also seeing demand climb, and wind power drop. No grid alerts here, at least yet.
Alberta electrical grid in peril for the third time in 24 hours
The Alberta Electric System Operator issued a grid alert for the second time in one day, third time in 24 hours, and fifth time in three weeks. And at 5:27, demand hit another all-time peak.
Alberta electrical grid alert second time in less than 24 hours, fourth time this month
For the second time in 2 days, 4th time in December, Alberta Electric System Operator declares a “grid alert” as the power system can’t keep up with demand. It’s too cold for the wind turbines. -31C at Lethbridge, -35 C at Pincher Creek
Alarm bells, not sleigh bells, should be ringing in Alberta. Saskatchewan, too.
Pipeline Online column on Alberta’s two electrical grid alerts this past week. And it’s not even really cold there yet.
As evidenced twice this past week, the electrical grid can barely handle the demand we have, now, before we switch most of our transportation system to electric vehicles. What happens when half our cars and trucks are EVs? Then three-quarters? What happens when the wind doesn’t blow then? No one goes to work?
When will the other media take notice? When will they start to question this mad rush to wind and solar, and total adoption of electric vehicles? When will someone else in the Saskatchewan media declare “The emperor has no clothes?”
As Alberta’s wind power generation collapsed this week, so, too did Saskatchewan’s giant stinkin’ fans
On Tuesday going into Wednesday, Wind power production in Alberta dropped to 0.1 per cent of nameplate capacity. And it stayed at 2% or less for about 24 hours. Well, now we know Saskatchewan saw a substantial drop as well.
At 12:30 a.m. this morning, Alberta got just 3 megawatts out of its 3,076 megawatts of wind. Again
Again and again and again, Alberta’s wind power totally collapses to effectively zero. It got really low at supper on Tuesday, dropping to around 15 megawatts, which is pretty much nothing since their nameplate capacity has grown, again, now to 3,076 megawatts.
But by 12:30 a.m., it dropped to just 3 megawatts. That’s out of hundreds of turbines costing many billions of dollars.
Oh, and you have to look at how much the $100 million or so worth of batteries have contributed in the last month. Take a guess.
But hey, Microsoft just signed on to buy a whole schwack of wind power. Does your Azure server rely on Alberta wind?
What the minister has to say about the Sask First Act, and not freezing in the dark
Here’s a deep dive interview with the minister behind the Saskatchewan First Act.
“So let’s take let’s take the power thing first of all,” Eyre said, noting the proposed Clean Electricity Standard, if adopted in its current form, would mean no fossil fueled power generation in this province by 2035.
According to SaskPower’s Where Your Power Comes From website, on any given day, coal and natural gas combined provide 65 to 84 per cent of the power in Saskatchewan. On Nov. 6, it was 77 per cent.
Eyre said, “That’s a federal policy which we hope will never see the light of day, but which is moving along. We will freeze in the dark. And we know that. Saskatoon (is) powered by the Queen Elizabeth, a natural gas-powered power station. The entire City of Saskatoon (would be) in huge trouble.”
SaskPower is literally doubling down on wind and solar power production. Expect lots of giant stinking fans and shiny panels to come
They’re going to double wind and solar capacity. But on Oct. 3, all our wind produced just 7% of its capacity.
We don’t need no giant stinking fans. But we’re going to build a lot of them.
The Saskatchewan Party government sure seems to have some mixed messages when it comes to wind and solar power. We keep building more, and will build a lot more, but it turns out they don’t produce as advertised.
In two throne speeches on Nov. 2, one MLA spoke praises of SaskPower’s buildout. But another pointed out that you don’t get anywhere close to what the nameplate capacity is.
Our solar capacity is 20 and we were getting 2. You cannot run a province, you cannot run business, you cannot run industry, you cannot run people’s homes on that unreliability