IT ISN’T EASY GOING GREEN

The NDP government’s new baby — a climate change plan aimed at powering Alberta with more environmentally friendly sources of electricity — won’t be delivered for another nine months, but already we’re starting to experience teething pains.

The oldest commercial wind power facility in Canada is being demolished near Pincher Creek after converting stiff breezes into electricity for more than two decades. TransAlta Corp. says it won’t replace the obsolete facility until it learns what inducements the NDP will offer to wind power generators.

“Unfortunately, right now, it’s not economically feasible,” says Wayne Oliver, operations supervisor for TransAlta’s wind operations in the area. “We’re anxiously waiting to see what incentives might come from our new government.”

It’s likely, then, that taxpayers are going to have to coax companies to invest in generating more electricity using wind turbines — money that will presumably come from the NDP’s carbon tax, which will cost the average household $480 a year initially, rising to double that amount by 2030.

It’s not just incentives for wind power that expose Albertans to risk.

The NDP’s decision to start taxing carbon emissions at $30 a tonne on Jan. 1 is being viewed as a change in the law, giving companies an excuse to cancel money-losing contracts to buy electricity from coal-fired plants. The terminated agreements mean Alberta’s so-called balancing pool must deal with the unwanted power contracts, and it’s expected that customers will see the impact of that reflected in their electricity bills.

“The people (who are) going to be picking up the losses on that are Albertans ….” says Gary Reynolds, who was the balancing pool’s CEO between 2003 and 2011. “The impact on consumers could be very significant.”

Earlier this week, the government appointed Terry Boston, the retired head of North America’s largest power grid, to lead discussions with coal-fired electricity generation owners about the closure of their plants.

Companies have warned that Albertans could be on the hook for billions of dollars in compensation if they’re forced to shutter their plants by 2030. Boston is being paid up to $600,000 for his job, and it’s clear that the owners of six plants that were supposed to keep operating beyond 2030 will be looking for redress.

Some experts believe Albertans can look to the experiences of Ontario and Quebec for a glimpse of what’s to come.

Both provinces subsidized the use of renewables, but they now find themselves with more power than they use. The problem is the resale of the surplus power doesn’t cover the cost of generating it, so households and businesses are paying higher rates to cover the losses.

“The cost of replacing coal-powered electricity generation with more expensive renewable alternatives in Alberta will likely be passed on to consumers in the form of higher electricity prices,” says Mark Milke, an independent policy analyst and co-author of an economic note for the Montreal Economic Institute. “Also, alternative energy power generation will require government support, as it has in Ontario and elsewhere.”

We won’t know for months what arrangements the Notley government will make with power producers. We also don’t have a price tag for the support the NDP has promised to workers and communities effected by shunning coal. What we do know is that Albertans have cause for concern about the cost of what the NDP will be delivering.

The people (who are) going to be picking up the losses on that are Albertans.