Alberta
Boxing Day Special! Alberta had free power for several hours, and that’s not a good thing

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Imagine, if you will, a Boxing Day sale where everything was free for everyone across every store at the same time, for several hours.
And imagine if in early morning hours of Dec. 26, Best Buy, Staples, Walmart, and indeed every single store in the entire economy got paid precisely zero dollars for their wares for several hours that morning.
Preposterous, you say!
Indeed, it did happen, in Alberta’s free-wheeling unregulated electrical market. The pool price, as recorded by the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) was $0.00 per megawatt at 4-7 a.m., and from 11 a.m. until noon.
And as a pool price, that means unless there’s some other contract going, that’s the price all generators get paid.
I might not have an MBA, but I’m fairly certain no business model in the world can survive getting paid nothing at all for their product for terribly long. If McDonalds, Burger King and Tim Horton’s all gave away their breakfasts on Dec. 26 to all comers, they couldn’t do it for long before someone would realize this is idiocy and shut the doors.
So what was happening during those wee hours in the morning, as the Boxing Day shoppers were in line for their flat screen TVs? It was quite windy in Alberta.
X bot account @ReliableAB, which logs hourly reports of the AESO minute-by-minute reporting of the grid showed that wind generation was just a hummin’. For several weeks, Alberta wind power has been been frequently pumping out high numbers, often in excess of 70 per cent of its nameplate capacity. One would think this would be a great thing, right? It’s finally doing what it’s supposed to do.
At 4:38 a.m., @ReliableAB reported Alberta’s now 45 wind farms were putting out 3,508 megawatts of the installed capacity of 4,481 megawatts while the pool price was zero.
At that point, wind was generating a full 33 per cent of total generation, which again, sounds like great news.
It was during one of the deadest periods of economic activity in the whole year, the night after Christmas. Demand in Alberta was low, with an internal load of 9,632 megawatts. The lack of demand happened to coincide with lots of surplus power being dumped onto the grid.
(As it was still dark, solar wasn’t a factor.)
What to do? How about sell as much as you can?
And that’s what happened. Alberta was pumping out 995 megawatts of power exports to its neighbours, 967 megawatts to BC, 26 to Saskatchewan, and two megawatts to Montana.
This situation is also the converse of what I’ve been reporting on over almost precisely 24 months, the frequent collapse of wind power generation in Alberta. Almost every time that has happened, the pool price shoots up, often hitting $700, $800, $900 or even the theoretical maximum of $999.99 per megawatt hour. If the maximum was $2,000, I’m willing to bet it would have hit those heights, too. And the integral under that graph – what consumers get on their bill – is horrendous.
So here we have renewable, “green” power in surplus, driving prices down for everyone, and so much so that it can benefit the neighbours, too.
But therein is the fundamental problem. No one, not Best Buy, McDonalds or Capital Power can produce product for nothing, and definitely not for extended periods. There is a cost to generating power, be it capital or fuel or operating costs. Nor can they sell their products, be it flat screen TVs, hamburgers or electricity for next to nothing, either. The entire economic model will collapse, and then what? Who will provide the power then?
When I wrote my first story on Alberta wind power on Dec. 28, 2021, the province had 2,269 megawatts on nameplate wind generation capacity. It’s now double that, at 4,481 megawatts, a level where big swings in wind power production have a huge impact. And Alberta’s last coal plant will switch to natural gas in a few months.
And there’s more wind coming. Oct. 24, the Calgary Herald noted, “More than 3,500 megawatts of renewable power generation projects are now under construction in Alberta.
“By the end of August, the AESO received 74 wind and solar project applications after the moratorium was announced, (Premier Danielle) Smith noted.”
What’s going to happen when all that comes online, when Alberta will have around 9,600 megawatts of wind and solar, almost equal to daily demand? Will the grid be flooded with power so cheap that reliable, dispatchable power generators can’t stay in business, only to see prices skyrocket when wind and solar inevitably fail, as they frequently do, and at the worst times?
Sounds like a recipe for utter chaos. And blackouts.
Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online, and occasional contributor to the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He can be reached at [email protected].
Alberta
Big win for Alberta and Canada: Statement from Premier Smith

Premier Danielle Smith issued the following statement on the April 2, 2025 U.S. tariff announcement:
“Today was an important win for Canada and Alberta, as it appears the United States has decided to uphold the majority of the free trade agreement (CUSMA) between our two nations. It also appears this will continue to be the case until after the Canadian federal election has concluded and the newly elected Canadian government is able to renegotiate CUSMA with the U.S. administration.
“This is precisely what I have been advocating for from the U.S. administration for months.
“It means that the majority of goods sold into the United States from Canada will have no tariffs applied to them, including zero per cent tariffs on energy, minerals, agricultural products, uranium, seafood, potash and host of other Canadian goods.
“There is still work to be done, of course. Unfortunately, tariffs previously announced by the United States on Canadian automobiles, steel and aluminum have not been removed. The efforts of premiers and the federal government should therefore shift towards removing or significantly reducing these remaining tariffs as we go forward and ensuring affected workers across Canada are generously supported until the situation is resolved.
“I again call on all involved in our national advocacy efforts to focus on diplomacy and persuasion while avoiding unnecessary escalation. Clearly, this strategy has been the most effective to this point.
“As it appears the worst of this tariff dispute is behind us (though there is still work to be done), it is my sincere hope that we, as Canadians, can abandon the disastrous policies that have made Canada vulnerable to and overly dependent on the United States, fast-track national resource corridors, get out of the way of provincial resource development and turn our country into an independent economic juggernaut and energy superpower.”
Alberta
Energy sector will fuel Alberta economy and Canada’s exports for many years to come

From the Fraser Institute
By any measure, Alberta is an energy powerhouse—within Canada, but also on a global scale. In 2023, it produced 85 per cent of Canada’s oil and three-fifths of the country’s natural gas. Most of Canada’s oil reserves are in Alberta, along with a majority of natural gas reserves. Alberta is the beating heart of the Canadian energy economy. And energy, in turn, accounts for one-quarter of Canada’s international exports.
Consider some key facts about the province’s energy landscape, as noted in the Alberta Energy Regulator’s (AER) 2023 annual report. Oil and natural gas production continued to rise (on a volume basis) in 2023, on the heels of steady increases over the preceding half decade. However, the dollar value of Alberta’s oil and gas production fell in 2023, as the surging prices recorded in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine retreated. Capital spending in the province’s energy sector reached $30 billion in 2023, making it the leading driver of private-sector investment. And completion of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project has opened new offshore export avenues for Canada’s oil industry and should boost Alberta’s energy production and exports going forward.
In a world striving to address climate change, Alberta’s hydrocarbon-heavy energy sector faces challenges. At some point, the world may start to consume less oil and, later, less natural gas (in absolute terms). But such “peak” consumption hasn’t arrived yet, nor does it appear imminent. While the demand for certain refined petroleum products is trending down in some advanced economies, particularly in Europe, we should take a broader global perspective when assessing energy demand and supply trends.
Looking at the worldwide picture, Goldman Sachs’ 2024 global energy forecast predicts that “oil usage will increase through 2034” thanks to strong demand in emerging markets and growing production of petrochemicals that depend on oil as the principal feedstock. Global demand for natural gas (including LNG) will also continue to increase, particularly since natural gas is the least carbon-intensive fossil fuel and more of it is being traded in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Against this backdrop, there are reasons to be optimistic about the prospects for Alberta’s energy sector, particularly if the federal government dials back some of the economically destructive energy and climate policies adopted by the last government. According to the AER’s “base case” forecast, overall energy output will expand over the next 10 years. Oilsands output is projected to grow modestly; natural gas production will also rise, in part due to greater demand for Alberta’s upstream gas from LNG operators in British Columbia.
The AER’s forecast also points to a positive trajectory for capital spending across the province’s energy sector. The agency sees annual investment rising from almost $30 billion to $40 billion by 2033. Most of this takes place in the oil and gas industry, but “emerging” energy resources and projects aimed at climate mitigation are expected to represent a bigger slice of energy-related capital spending going forward.
Like many other oil and gas producing jurisdictions, Alberta must navigate the bumpy journey to a lower-carbon future. But the world is set to remain dependent on fossil fuels for decades to come. This suggests the energy sector will continue to underpin not only the Alberta economy but also Canada’s export portfolio for the foreseeable future.
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