Rolling Blackouts Narrowly Avoided In Alberta
By Paul Homewood
They seem surprised that it gets cold in Canada!
A critical emergency alert was issued on Saturday evening urging Albertans to reduce electricity use to minimize potential outages across the province.
In an alert sent at around 6:36 p.m., the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) said extreme cold is resulting in high power demand across the province, which places the electricity grid at a high risk of rotating power outages.
Albertans are asked to immediately limit their electricity use to essential needs only and to turn off unnecessary lights and electrical appliances. AESO is also asking Albertans to minimize the use of space heaters and to delay the use of major power appliances.
“We are calling on all Albertans to reduce their electric demand immediately to essentials only. Extreme cold resulting in high power demand has put the province’s electricity grid at high risk of rotating outages tonight,” said Nathan Neudorf, Alberta’s minister of affordability and utilities.
All of Alberta is under an extreme cold warning, with temperatures below -30 C and wind chill of -40 C due to a polar vortex.
On Thursday at around 6 p.m., the new hourly peak demand record was set at 12,384 megawatts (MW), beating a previous record of 12,193 MW set in December 2022.
AESO said that new record was based on energy requirements from industrial, commercial, agricultural and residential users.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10224558/alberta-grid-alert-day-two-polar-vortex/
In a statement, Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf called on Albertans to reduce their electric demand to essentials only. Th e Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) said the alert was declared as a result of the ongoing extreme cold temperatures across Western Canada, in addition to restricted imports and “very high demand.”
“On top of high demand of our own energy generation, Alberta’s grid receives electricity from neighbouring provinces,” said Neudorf. “Extreme weather in Saskatchewan and British Columbia is impacting electricity sharing, which is also a contributing factor to tonight’s grid alert. The Alberta Electric System Operator has activated its emergency grid management plan to work with local distribution utilities to avoid potential rolling brownouts.”
Did they really think they could carry on importing power from neighbouring states, when the weather was just as bad there?
Fortunately during that peak demand, coal and gas were running close to full capacity, whilst wind and solar contributed just 2.6%.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I live just south of Calgary AB. and we have hit -39, -38.5, -38 the past few mornings (I record temps for Environment Canada), and you can see the local Gas Plant just spewing out steam as the go full on to keep the heat/lights on. The wind mills have long since been shut down to ‘protect’ them, and the solar panels are covered in snow…
I mentioned to some folks, that if they start doing any rolling black-outs, they should start with left wing/green Edmonton and every other NDP/Liberal riding….
The premier of Sask had a great response on twitter…
If they had smart-meters like the UK, they wouldn’t need to ask the populas to minimise their electic ….they’d just automatically cut off your power
” .. wouldn’t need to ask the populas to minimise their electic ….they’d just automatically cut off your power ”
That’s certainly technically possible in the UK, however the believers will tell you that current legislation prevents this, which leads to:
“How long would it take to amend the legislation if there is an energy emergency which threatens the UK grid?”
My guess is 24 hours.
Do I sense a marketing opportunity for signal blocking covers for ‘smart’ meters?
Trust me, more global warming (the only way the Climate Change can proceed in Alberta) will make heating requirements obsolete. True, most of you would freeze to death meanwhile, but as long it is you and not me, it is fine. 🙂
And I guess your measurements were accurate and not afected by active airports, city centre heat island effects or air conditioner heat exchangers.
Actually, I do notice UHI here too. When I started recording for EC back in 1990 to present, I have noticed a noticeable increase also.
The town I lived in has grown from about 3,000 to 30,000
BTW, I used to work for EC in the late 70’s in the high arctic, and now do temps/precip on volunteer basis, so I have an extensive background in ‘weather’ AKA climate now 😦 …shaking head….
When the NDP (Socialist) party was voted into power in Alberta in 2015 (ousted in 2019), they immediately shut down 6 of Alberta’s coal fired power plants and went on a massive spending spree to subsidize wind and solar. Wind turbines break down when it’s-40 and solar panels don’t wirk when they’re covered with snow. These are the reasons why Alberta (ironically a province abundant in oil, natural gas and oil reserves) was on the verge of rolling blackouts…at -40 . Alberta’s can thank the Saskatchewan Party (Conservative) for having the foresight to keep their coal fired power plants running, enabling them to transfer power to Alberta to keep the lights on and the furnaces running.
I hope Saskatchewan are extracting a high price from Albertans for saving their grid. And All Hail! the great Saskatchewan Quick Dick McDick and his great youtube channel.
Along Canada’s west coast there is a small area not below freezing. The rest of the country is C O L D. The USA is mostly below freezing with the part next to Canada extremely so. The Arctic Air Mass has now almost reached the Gulf of Mexico.
While this is news, it is not new.
Many people making comments on blogs unrelated to weather/climate are state their personal low temperature experiences.
Stay safe and warm.
Will Texas suffer grid problems again if it gets below freezing or did they learn any lessons from last time the windmills froze and hundreds died – that includes all those who missed life saving treatments due to hospitals losing power.
In Seattle, with temperatures dropping to 15ºF, our energy provider has emailed customers to beseech us to minimize the use of heating as “the cold weather throughout the Pacific Northwest continues to strain energy resources.”
” … beseech us to minimize the use of heating… ”
The supplier needs to be sacked ASAP for being demonstrably incompetent.
Quote:-
“Fortunately during that peak demand, coal and gas were running close to full capacity”
While it is good that those sources were working as they should; in any controlled process, such as the grid is, if the input is at or near maximum there is little to no control left. That is the problem, frequency, which is the measure of load and supply balance (in which they must be) has a tight limit and if exceeded for too long the system automatically trips load. This can just be a matter of minutes and can lead to a domino effect to total power loss.
It is a very fragile system when running very close to the limit. A very uncomfortable situation for the grid controller.
Looks like today (15th Jan) in the Uk the Grid is being saved by the lucky decent level of wind which is even enabling us to export to France. Demand is 45gb which I guess will rise to 47gb ish by tonight. The Nuclear fleet is about 2gb down due to unplanned shutdowns. Fortunately wind is producing 13gb. It makes you wonder how close we will get to rolling blackouts we are if we truly have low wind speed and the coal units shutdown as expected over the next year or two. I wonder what the government is not telling us and why there was this rather odd intervention by a Minister about self-reliance and the need to stock up on candles etc. I could be paranoid but……..
Meanwhile in Dublin. An electric bus being charged using a diesel generator.
Oh NO. If I cannot recharge my EV it will not make it back from the trip down the driveway to get my mail from my mail box.
worth reading the article on wind watch about the Alberta wind fleet having to shut down despite wind blowing….
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2024/01/14/most-of-albertas-wind-fleet-shut-down-by-cold-thursday-night/
ERCOT in Texas is pleading with customers to cut demand as the freezing weather hits them. Nothing has been done since Feb 2021 to secure the grid from windmill failures.