30 Fairmont Park Lane S
Lethbridge, AB T1K 7H7
Phone: (403) 328-1804
Friday, April 20, 2012
The Editor
The Lethbridge Herald
P.O. Box 670
Lethbridge, AB, T1J 3Z7
Re: “Power generates lively debate at Lethbridge East forum”, April 4
David Mabell opines that Alberta’s “troubled experiment with deregulated power”
was a hot topic at the April 4 Lethbridge East all candidates forum. For sure!
Government plans to expand the transmission system were the focus of the power
discussion.
Interestingly, none of the candidates talked about the underlying hot potato
issue that is driving transmission system expansion. That would be the
experiment with wind generated electricity that our government imposed on the
Alberta Electric System Operator. The AESO’s transmission system plan is readily
available to the public. It makes clear that a need for massive transmission
system expansion follows from a 2007 government directive to “start working on
ways to enable electricity producers to add more wind to Alberta’s power
supply”.
This could be an expensive path to follow. How far have we gone down it? A
review of my power bills from 2004 and 2012 reveals substantial changes to my
unit electricity cost. The increase in the charge for, “Administration”,”
Energy”, “Transmission Charge”, “Distribution”, and “Local Access Fee” was 81,
28, 236, 45 and 78 percent, respectively, over the eight years. I’ve left out
two add-ons which came in since 2004. These are the “Balancing Pool Allocation”
and the AESO Demand Service Transmission (DTS) Rider. These two summed up to
essentially zero over 2011, but may warrant future scrutiny.
Certainly, transmission charges and other delivery related add-ons are
increasing at a much faster rate than electricity itself. The relative increase
for the “Transmission” charge is already dramatically higher than for the
electricity (“Energy”) itself. We’ve barely started on planned transmission line
expansion.
Would it be timely to take a time out on transmission system building, as some
candidates indicated they would, and review the consequences of our “experiment
with deregulated power”? I think so. Lessons learned, and applied, could
possibly help to provide Albertans with an electricity system which delivers
essential energy at reasonable cost to users.
Yours truly,
Duane Pendergast