In a conversation with the Western Standard's Opinion Editor Nigel Hannaford, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she is more confident about Alberta's power supply this year compared to previous years."One of the challenges that we face with our electricity system is that we used to have base-load that was coal, that was very reliable, and then it would be supplemented by gas and wind and solar," said Smith."With the early phase out of coal, which I think was a mistake to move as quickly as the province did — it flipped it on its head. And so when you have all of this intermittent power, that's what has led to the instability in the grid."Alberta's power grid functions as a network of power generation, delivery, and distribution systems. The electricity comes from several sources, including natural gas, wind, solar, and hydroelectric power.As of June, Capital Power announced the last coal-fired generator was now completely natural gas fuelled and "coal is no longer a source of electricity in Alberta."Smith said it can take some time to call in reliable and dispatchable natural gas power when it's needed. As a result, the province is changing its power system — preference will be given to "those types of power that can be dispatchable.""We're bringing more of that on with natural gas," said Smith. "And so at this point I think we had another 2,700 megawatts of power come on — so we're not as constrained as we were in previous years. We have more options than we did in previous years.""I don't want to say never (have a problem) because we have had (failures) in the last two years because of the intermittency," said Smith. "But we're moving in the right direction, and I'm very confident that we'll be able to, within the next two years, have a system that people can rely on."Offsetting the phase-out of coal are equally large increases in natural gas use, along with renewable energy like wind and solar, says the Alberta Electric System Operator."In fact, Alberta now leads all other provinces in growth in wind and solar energy. You can watch the Hannford show in full when it airs on Monday night at 7 p.m.
