Alberta wind farms

[Scott h]

It looks like Alberta has 4 new power projects that should be up and producing power by 2019. Seems like the cost of wind power is continuing to drop like a stone.
http://calgaryherald.com/business/en...power-projects

[Newview01]

What is the cause of the drop? Lower manufacturing / installation costs? More subsidies?

[Scott h]

Originally Posted by Newview01

What is the cause of the drop? Lower manufacturing / installation costs? More subsidies?

Larger wind turbines that are more efficient and economy of scale.
https://www.windpowermonthly.com/art...lberta-auction

[Okotokian]

GREAT!!! The government (meaning you and me) will subsidize any difference between the bidders price and the overall wholesale price in the province! Investors guaranteed to make money and the taxpayer guaranteed to be screwed. It's the NDP way. It's all there in the story.

[Scott h]

Originally Posted by Okotokian

GREAT!!! The government (meaning you and me) will subsidize any difference between the bidders price and the overall wholesale price in the province! Investors guaranteed to make money and the taxpayer guaranteed to be screwed. It's the NDP way. It's all there in the story.

Who paid when the price was $80 bucks in 2013 ?

[79ford]

I think wind and the transition away from coal has been underway for awhile now. As industrial processing plants/sagd modernize and get built power and steam needs are being satisfied by cogeneration from natural gas/fuel gas etc. Wind is getting cheaper and weeelllthe wind is always blowing in southern alberta.

Wind has benefits for power users as a whole in some sense. Wind dumps everything to the grid and brings the spot power price down when the wind is blowing. Wind pretty much blows money into large power consumers pockets when it picks up. When the wind isnt blowing there is lots of new gas generation supplying cheap power.

[BlackHeart]

Originally Posted by Scott h

Larger wind turbines that are more efficient and economy of scale.
https://www.windpowermonthly.com/art...lberta-auction

WHO do you work for Scott h?
My bet is its a political party or one heavily related to politics.
Because most of your posts are promoting an particular agenda and how great they are. In fact most of your threads seem like a political press releases designed to convince the ignorant masses of how they need to think....pre-scripted.

[Scott h]

Originally Posted by BlackHeart

WHO do you work for Scott h?
My bet is its a political party or one heavily related to politics.
Because most of your posts are promoting an particular agenda and how great they are. In fact most of your threads seem like a political press releases designed to convince the ignorant masses of how they need to think....pre-scripted.

Nope. I work in the medical field.
How about you ????

[BlackHeart]

Originally Posted by Scott h

Nope. I work in the medical field.
How about you ????

Finance for a retail company.

[Scott h]

Originally Posted by BlackHeart

Finance for a retail company.

So with your finance history do you think the price of $37 per megawatt - hour is a decent price to pay over the next 20 years ???

[CF8889]

AO has more volunteer politicians then it has hunters and anglers.

I am excited to see where wind power goes. Got a buddy who does some work on em out in Quebec. Seems to be a deecent gig.

[nimrod]

Any body notice Castle Mountain is one of the new locations for the turbines the last nail in the no hunting saga, there

[dmcbride]

Originally Posted by nimrod

Any body notice Castle Mountain is one of the new locations for the turbines the last nail in the no hunting saga, there

I doubt one will be able to hunt on any of the wind farms just like Ontario.

I suppose one could just sit under one and eat the dead birds.

[Dewey Cox]

Which 4 projects are a go?

[Taco]

Originally Posted by nimrod

Any body notice Castle Mountain is one of the new locations for the turbines the last nail in the no hunting saga, there

Your assumption is off, Castle Rock Ridge is out by the Old Man dam north of Pincher Station. Castle Mt is 30km SW of Pincher Creek.

[Newview01]

Originally Posted by 79ford

Wind pretty much blows money into large power consumers pockets

[SLH]

They want to hit 5000 megawatts and we have 1500 now. so for everyone of those eyes sores that is out there now we'll get another 3.3 beside it and I get to pay for it. I can hardly wait!

Get me a nuke any day.

[Scott h]

Originally Posted by CF8889

AO has more volunteer politicians then it has hunters and anglers.

I am excited to see where wind power goes. Got a buddy who does some work on em out in Quebec. Seems to be a deecent gig.

Seems like a lot of decent jobs associated with getting them up and running over the next few years.

[hal53]

I wonder how many they are installing in Edmonton and Calgary?....
oh, that's right...all the people that want them don't want to have to actually see them....

[Brian Adams]

Originally Posted by hal53

I wonder how many they are installing in Edmonton and Calgary?

No need to wonder.
They are installed in windy areas.

[pikergolf]

Originally Posted by Dewey Cox

Which 4 projects are a go?

Whitla (SW Med. Hat) is getting a farm, 58 turbines I believe. Exciting times.

[Scott h]

Originally Posted by hal53

I wonder how many they are installing in Edmonton and Calgary?....
oh, that's right...all the people that want them don't want to have to actually see them....

Calgary would be a great place for a turbine or two and I doubt many people would complain about the site of them. Have you ever traveled any where ? Many cities have them.
However it may be a little too modern for a city that can't even get it's act together on secondary suites

[dmcbride]

Originally Posted by Scott h

So with your finance history do you think the price of $37 per megawatt - hour is a decent price to pay over the next 20 years ???

Sure it is a decent price but the devil is in the details. We won’t be seeing cheaper electricity bills and we will be paying more tax.


http://edmontonsun.com/opinion/colum...m-still-flawed

[scalerman]

Just an observation about wind power that I personally find perplexing to say the least.
When birds land in a tailings pond from an oil production facility and die the oil company is fined heavily for the death of the birds, rightly or wrongly so, I am not sure personally. When birds are killed by wind turbines there is no action taken by the government. Can someone help to understand why that is so? If the oil company is held responsible for where the birds land why then are the wind generation companies not held responsible for where the birds fly? If we want to take it to the next level what about all of the birds that a killed by hydro transmission lines? Why are the birds killed by contact with them not acted upon?

[CaberTosser]

Anything like wind or solar both have sporadic power output, and correspondingly have to be backed up by redundant generation in the form of a combustion based power generation station. Any wind or solar install you see still needs a reliable back-up. At least until we all have battery storage in our homes to ride out the inconsistent power outputs of such means.

Hey, having the taxpayer back up market price has worked for Ontario!!

[Newview01]

Originally Posted by Scott h

Calgary would be a great place for a turbine or two and I doubt many people would complain about the site of them. Have you ever traveled any where ? Many cities have them.
However it may be a little too modern for a city that can't even get it's act together on secondary suites

So am I old fashioned for thinking windmills are an eyesore?

[Newview01]

So not only is there $10m in subsidies being handed out, they are not taking into account the cost of shutting down coal. So why can't someone put all the costs together to come up with an accurate number?

http://calgaryherald.com/business/en...annual-subsidy

Today’s column is about having fun with numbers.
And there were plenty of figures floating around Wednesday at Premier Rachel Notley’s announcement about Alberta’s renewable power contracts.

Three companies were selected to build new wind developments: two bidders from overseas and one — Capital Power — from Alberta.

Total investment for these wind farms is projected at around $1 billion. About 600 megawatts (MW) of renewable electricity will be added to the provincial grid.

Amid the avalanche of numbers, however, two figures really mattered: one the government was shouting from the rooftop at McDougall Centre; another it tried to avoid uttering the entire day.

The first figure is 3.7 cents per kilowatt-hour, the weighted average price of the winning bids in Alberta’s first-ever auction for renewable power contracts.
The second number is $10 million a year, the estimated annual cost of subsidies for these contracts.

As part of the province’s strategy to green the grid, the NDP wants renewable power to make up 30 per cent of all generation capacity by 2030.
At the same time, the Notley government is phasing out coal-fired electricity as it strives to reduce Alberta’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The government ran a competitive auction to get bids for 400 MW of electricity, but decided to take more once it saw the great price it could nab.
And it was a bargain.

Notley pointed out some people thought Alberta’s price would exceed eight cents per kilowatt-hour.

After all, Ontario’s own renewable auction in 2016 saw an average price of 8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, and her own government budgeted for something similar.

When the premier announced the average price was 3.7 cents, some of the crowd packed inside McDougall Centre gasped at the price.

(Some gasped, others clapped, such was the excitement.)

Not only is 3.7 cents lower than anyone predicted, but it’s pretty darn competitive with natural gas-fired generation.

“That’s remarkable … 3.7 cents for energy is pretty smoking hot,” said electricity consultant David Gray, former executive director of the Alberta Utilities Consumer Advocate.

“That’s the beauty of when you have a government-backed contract. People like sound and firm investments and will really cut the profit margins to get them.”

Duane Reid-Carlson, head of electricity consultancy EDC Associates, called the number a surprise.

“That is low. We’ve backward calculated some numbers, and you’ve got to have solid economics, a low cost of capital and some cheap, cheap turbine sources — about half of the price of what’s been installed in Alberta to date,” he said.

For those who want to see renewable energy expand significantly in the province, this was a moment of vindication, a seismic shift on how people should view the competitiveness of wind and solar as costs continue to come down and efficiency goes up.

“People mostly perceive renewables to be expensive,” said Binnu Jeyakumar of the Pembina Institute.

“Renewables actually can be a legitimate … economic source of electricity moving forward for us, and not just something that is in the fringes.”
But like any game involving statistics, you can have fun cherry-picking numbers to focus on — or ignore — such as
how much the government will pay out in subsidies for these contracts.
Alberta is essentially offering a guaranteed price to developers through an indexed renewable energy credit.

If wholesale electricity prices fall below 3.7 cents per kilowatt-hour — as they are today — the province must make up the difference. If electricity prices rise above that mark, the operator will pay the province.

“There will be periods of time when the Alberta government will get money,” Capital Power CEO Brian Vaasjo said after the event.

“We see at some time, you won’t need any subsidy … because the economics are there for wind farms to be developed on a strictly commercial basis.”
Not only does the contract structure entice developers to bid competitively, it allows them to obtain a lower cost of capital.

So how much will the government subsidies, coming out of carbon levy revenues, be for these 20-year contracts?

I asked four times about the size of any subsidies, but both Notley and Environment Minister Shannon Phillips skirted the question.

However, Michael Law of the Alberta Electric System Operator, which runs the provincial power grid, expects the province will provide “support payments” of about $10 million a year.

Some critics will be outraged any subsidy is being offered, but it’s a heck of a lot lower than initial AESO estimates, which were predicated upon Ontario’s 2016 experience.

At those levels, support payments would have hit $2.4 billion over 20 years; instead, they’ll come in at less than $230 million, AESO estimates.

The official Opposition points out other costs must be factored into the mix, such as the $1.4 billion in payments being made to existing coal facility owners, or the need to back up intermittent renewable power with readily available supply — such as from gas-fired plants — that can start up when the wind isn’t blowing.

For those who believe Alberta’s clean energy has real benefits — tackling climate change, health gains from not burning coal — this is a small price to pay as the renewable revolution picks up speed.

“This is an exceptional price and the fear of loading up Albertans with high-priced renewables … I think that goes away at these price levels,” said*Blake Shaffer, a fellow-in-residence at the C.D. Howe Institute and former energy trader.

It would be short-sighted to focus on just one number in the middle of a bright, sunny day for Alberta’s renewable electricity sector.
But there are plenty of figures to selectively pick from as more wind power blows through the province, and more is on its way.

[zabbo]

Originally Posted by Scott h

Calgary would be a great place for a turbine or two and I doubt many people would complain about the site of them. Have you ever traveled any where ? Many cities have them.
However it may be a little too modern for a city that can't even get it's act together on secondary suites

Seriously?? Ever heard any discussion regarding placement of cell towers in Calgary???

[zabbo]

Originally Posted by Scott h

So with your finance history do you think the price of $37 per megawatt - hour is a decent price to pay over the next 20 years ???

If I have this correct that equals 3.7 cents per Kwh. Sounds great! But, looking at my current enmax bill, power is 5.99 per Kwh. Further the total electrical charge is 104 dollars, of which only 42 dollars is described as per Kwh. I'm all for saving the planet, but it's agreed by pretty much every study around that Canada could shut down every car, truck, train and plane in the country with almost zero change in planetary green house gas emissions. Sure, we have to start somewhere, but hamstringing ourselves financially, without the major contributors on board doesn't make much sense to me.

[lannie]

Originally Posted by Newview01

So am I old fashioned for thinking windmills are an eyesore?

Most of the people I know that live around them think they are a bad eyesore.
The land owners who get paid to have them on their land are pretty happy as its pretty generous from what I have heard.