Hearings into two controversial transmission line projects will begin in Calgary today and move to Edmonton next week. The projects, the Western Alberta Transmission Line through the Calgary-Edmonton corridor, and the Eastern Alberta Transmission Line from northeast of Edmonton to Brooks, are needed to make Alberta’s power network more reliable and efficient while accommodating long-term growth and encouraging new generation, says the province. Critics maintain the province wants to use the lines to export power to the United States. Landowners, electricity producers, and large and small consumers will make presentations to a review committee in Calgary Jan. 10 – 12, and in Edmonton Jan. 18 – 20. The committee, chaired by Brian Heidecker and includes electricity experts Roy Billinton, Joseph Doucet, and Henry Yip, will provide a report to Minister of Energy Ted Morton by Feb. 10.
It’s tough looking at the AESO Pool price so far this month averaging $25.26/MWh while the NGX flat RRO Price index came in at $124/MWh. Most of the higher price forecast for January was based on Genesee#3 being offline for the first two weeks – some impact that has had. There’s a lot of speculation in the news these days about what the causes are and the questions surrounding transmission. I agree with several views out there that say re-regulation is not the answer but redesign is. It’s been over 10 years since de-regulation began and in the early days everyone played nice – you seldom heard that the MSA was investigating someone. Not so any more. The easiest first move is to get all consumers and generators to balance their own accounts up to 85% – no longer allow “taking” AESO Pool price – this will create a “real” market. Worked great when natural gas was deregulated.
