Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said every time you bring wind and solar power on the grid, you have to have a backup..Recently, Smith joined Shaye Ganam on Edmonton’s 630 CHED and Calgary's QR77 to explain some of her concerns about the federal government's plan to 'Just Transition' to greener energy.."What we have is natural gas," Smith said referring to its use as a backup.."So when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine, you bring on natural gas to cover the gap. The federal government doesn't want to add any new natural gas to the grid. So I told them, how can I bring on additional wind and solar?".Smith said no one is proposing any new natural gas plants because the federal government has created so much uncertainty in the market.."That's what we've got to figure out," said Smith.."That's one part. The other part is as we began to deal with oil and gas, we're demanding that energy companies spend down 3% of their liability and reclaim their existing sites.".Smith said she has concerns about the lifespan of wind and solar infrastructure and how to recycle it.."When you look at a wind installation, maybe it has 50 turbines, it's a fair amount of additional steel, fibreglass and an amount of concrete construction," Smith said.."What happens when that gets to its end of life? Who pays for that to be removed? We don't have a system in place.".Smith said she spent seven months driving past a solar farm near Medicine Hat, the riding she represents, and the infrastructure had been covered with ice and snow not producing power.."I have to accept that as a reality. When we were in winter, we had several times where the grid almost failed," she said.."It didn't have enough power and we can't call up solar on demand. We have times where even though we have megawatts of wind and solar there were two days in the winter when it was producing less than 100 megawatts of power.".Smith said there always has to be a power backup.."I always have to make sure that when we bring new on, we have to make sure that we have a backup. We're going to end up with grid instability and we just can't have that," Smith said.."Albertans can’t have their power fail on a -30C winter night. Our electrical grid must be reliable and we must consider reclamation costs."
