Alberta surpasses 1,000 MW wind power milestone
Alberta’s wind power generation capacity broke the 1,000-megawatt mark for the first time last year, but a national industry association warns there is work to be done if the province wants to continue to be a leader in the sector.
According to 2012 market statistics supplied by the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA), Alberta added 225 MW of wind power capacity last year.
The growth was due to the addition of two major wind farms — the Castle Rock Wind Farm near Pincher Creek and the Halkirk Wind Farm near Stettler.
The developments bump Alberta over the 1,000 MW milestone, giving the province a total of 1,116 MW of wind generating capacity.
“Obviously, we’re quite excited — we consider that significant,” said Lana Norgaard, CanWEA’s regional director for Alberta.
“Having said that, we recognize that for Alberta to continue to realize its full potential for wind power in the future, we have considerable challenges moving forward ... While we are excited about the milestone for last year, Alberta is rapidly falling behind two other provinces — Quebec and Ontario.”
Alberta currently ranks third in Canada for wind power production.
Ontario is the Canadian leader, with more than 2,000 MW of installed capacity now supplying more than three per cent of the province’s electricity demand. Both Ontario and Quebec are expected to lead the country with new installations of wind energy in 2013.
Norgaard said Alberta’s deregulated electricity system poses challenges to wind farm operators.
In Ontario, the province’s feed-in tariff program gives producers developing wind farms a fixed price for their electricity. In Alberta, producers selling into the power grid get market price for their electricity, and fluctuating prices make the economics of wind much more uncertain.
The result, Norgaard said, is securing financing for a wind farm in Alberta is much more difficult.
Norgaard said she hopes the Alberta government will address industry concerns, either by exploring a long-term power purchase agreement option for renewable energy projects or by putting in place a clean electricity standard that would support the development of the renewable sector as a whole.
However, the company behind Alberta’s largest wind farm — the newly operational 150 MW Halkirk project — disagrees.
Bryan DeNeve, vice-president of corporate development and commercial for Edmonton-based CapitalPower, said Alberta’s deregulated system has actually ensured that wind development progresses at a sustainable pace.
While Capital Power has two wind projects under de- velopment in Ontario, DeNeve said the favourable regulatory environment there has attracted so many renewable projects that when the wind is blowing strongly, power prices can plummet to zero.
“If you start changing the system to support wind, you start moving away from that deregulated system and a market pricing signal that works properly,” DeNeve said.
“There’s a right mix for any electrical system. There’s room for the renewables, but it can only go to a certain percentage.”
Nationwide, wind energy has grown at a pace of over 40 per cent annually since 2005.
Canada, which installed 936 MW of new capacity last year, is now the world’s ninth largest wind energy market. Both China and the United States, the world’s wind energy leaders, installed more than 13,000 MW of new capacity in 2012.