An analysis suggests that a year after Alberta imposed a seven-month moratorium on renewable power approvals, the legacy has been dozens of cancelled projects and legal uncertainty.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Chris Severson-Baker is the executive director of the Pembina Institute. He is a leading expert on responsible energy development, with specific expertise in electricity, oil and gas and the oil sands.
In September, BC Hydro’s competitive call for clean power landed proposals for three times more energy than they were targeting.
Meanwhile, the Government of Alberta is signalling it will take many more months to resolve the regulatory and market uncertainty it caused last year when it suddenly stopped wind and solar investment.
Alberta once had a head start on almost all new investment in renewable electricity in Canada. Now that is over. Developers are now proposing projects in B.C. and elsewhere.
Alberta’s primary advantage was deals done through what are known as power purchase agreements (PPAs), where corporations can buy clean energy from wind and solar developers. The third quarter of 2024 is almost over, and Alberta is on pace to have its slowest year for PPAs since 2019, according to data tracked by the Business Renewables Centre-Canada, a Pembina Institute initiative. Only one deal has been announced so far this year.
The Deal Tracker, which tallies corporate renewable energy deals in Canada, illustrates the change very clearly. For the last five years, the line rose steadily. But that growth has come to an abrupt halt.
Alberta is not just losing investment to B.C. Around the world, companies are cutting big deals for clean energy in 2024, agreeing to purchase a total of 22.1 gigawatts in the first six months of the year, which is more than a third higher than the same period a year earlier. In Texas, often seen as Alberta’s American counterpart in terms of its energy production, the state’s embrace of renewable energy and battery storage allowed it to sail unscathed through record-high energy demand this past summer.
And in Canada, it’s not just B.C. rolling out the welcome mat. Other provinces are attempting to copy the kind of power purchase agreements that generated rapid growth in Alberta. Nova Scotia is progressing swiftly with its Green Choice Program, which allows corporations to buy directly from independent power producers. Quebec selected winning bids for its 1.5-gigawatt call for wind power earlier this year. Ontario is showing world-class leadership in securing battery storage capacity and is also working on facilitating corporate procurement.
In other words, clean energy developers are spoiled for choice. Almost everywhere they look they see an open door. In Alberta, it feels like they’ve been shown the door.
That tone was set by the Alberta government when it announced a surprise seven-month moratorium on new renewable energy approvals in August, 2023. And since then, the new restrictions and mounting regulatory uncertainty have made this branch of the energy industry feel decidedly unwelcome in a province that has long declared itself an energy powerhouse and open for business.
This is to the detriment of all Albertans.
Wind and solar electricity are the cheapest power to generate and, when combined with battery storage, it is key to ensuring Alberta has enough clean, affordable and reliable energy to power homes and attract businesses. It is critical to attracting investment and creating jobs in the future energy industry.
But so far we’re seeing a lack of confidence in Alberta’s new market conditions. Since the moratorium announcement, 53 renewable energy projects have been cancelled, a Pembina Institute review found. That’s a five-fold increase from the rate of cancellations prior to the pause.
To revive Alberta’s ailing renewable energy market the government must clear away unnecessary red tape and treat the industry no more harshly than other land uses. It must provide a precise definition of what a “pristine viewscape” is, which is to be protected under the province’s new regulations, and describe to the industry what successful “co-existence” between crops and clean energy needs to look like.
Even more critically, the government also needs to clear up cost and profit expectations. It’s hard to make business decisions when you don’t know what reclamation and transmission tariffs are going to be, not to mention the more complicated market mechanisms that are still being discussed.
Until the Alberta government settles these issues it is losing private capital investment, new and valuable infrastructure and jobs, tax revenues for host communities, and payments to landowners.