Alberta’s electricity grid is supplied by a mix of energy sources, primarily natural gas as our base load.
But sources also include a variety of renewables including wind, solar, hydro and biomass. Of these renewable sources, wind is by far the greatest contributor to our grid. Despite significant efforts over the past decade, solar does not yet contribute to a great degree.
It is interesting to observe that when the production from these renewable source increases, the grid rates drop significantly. The more that renewables contribute to the grid, the lower the grid rates. Wind and solar are non-dispatchable and must put the power onto the grid regardless of demand – which drives down power prices.
Conversely, when the renewable sources don’t contribute to the grid, the grid rates can increase significantly – as much as 10 times the rates of renewables.
This results in a challenge for renewable electricity projects as the more they produce, the lower the rates they can get for their energy.
When we look at the Alberta electricity grid emissions, we can see a similar pattern. It’s no surprise that when renewables contribute to the grid, the emissions are reduced – dropping as low as 350 kg/MWh. When renewables are not contributing to the grid, our emissions are relatively stable at approximately 475 kg/MWh.
It is interesting to note that the emission factor in the Alberta grid has had a significant reduction from 900 kg/MWh in 1990 to 680 kg/MWh in 2018 (source National Inventory Report – 2020).
Data for this analysis is provided by enermetrics at https://enermetrics.info/energydashboard.
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