Province should heed failure of electricity deregulation.
by Ricardo Acuña for Vue Weekly
July 18, 2012: Back in 2002, the front page of the Alberta Energy website boasted, "Alberta has deregulated its electric industry to develop a competitive market for power generation and electricity services that will benefit consumers across the province." Ten years later, Alberta's electricity customers are still waiting for those benefits to materialize. This is especially the case after a perfect storm of spiking demand and failed generators resulted in rolling blackouts through Edmonton and Calgary last week, and will also result in some hefty power bills for the same period.
Alberta's Electricity System Operator (AESO) ordered the blackouts after four coal-fired plants and two gas-fired plants went down at approximately the same time on the afternoon of July 9, the hottest day of the year thus far in most parts of Alberta. The plant failures resulted in there being significantly more demand in Alberta than there was supply, so the blackouts were necessary to avoid complete disaster.