Alberta’s electrical grid operator has unveiled its long-awaited energy market reforms, a new framework for the province’s electricity market that is designed to improve reliability and affordability and pull in fresh private investment for more power generation, transmission and storage.
But Canadian clean energy advocates have said AESO’s restructured energy market plan, in development for two years, “misses the mark” on modernizing Alberta’s electricity network — and will lead instead to higher-priced gas-fired power in the future and fewer wind and solar plants, which cost less, in the province.
Vittoria Bellissimo, CEO of the Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA) stressed that the new restructure energy market plan both jeopardized existing wind and solar plants in the province with higher operating costs and transmission constraints, and would deter future power sector investment in the province.
“Alberta has shifted from being a magnet for investment to a market where companies now question the security of the investments they’ve already made,” she said, “creating significant challenges for the wind, solar and energy storage sector in Alberta. Read more here.