Photo courtesy of Colton McKee

By Scott Roblin

Provincial Power

Medicine Hat selling extra power to provincial grid at high price point

Jan 15, 2020 | 5:55 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Across the province, Albertans have been plunged into frigid and freezing temperatures this week regularly dipping below minus 30 degrees.

That cold snap has meant millions of Albertans are heating their homes and vehicles, which is something that is giving the City of Medicine Hat a boost financially.

“Our equipment is all running good and well,” said general manager of electric generation Brian Strandlund. “We haven’t had any issues with supply and demand of the city’s load and we’ve actually been exporting quite a bit to the grid as well for any extra we have.”

The City has been averaging around 130 megawatts of usage per day in Medicine Hat alone, which falls well short of their 230 megawatt capacity.

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That has allowed Medicine Hat to send power to the provincial grid, making big money off the climbing Alberta Electric System Operator rates this week.

Just a few days ago, AESO was paying a little over $50 per megawatt as temperatures remained around seasonal averages.

Since the temperature needle took a nosedive and more Albertans began turning on the heaters, that number has skyrocketed to just under $1,000 per megawatt due to the high demand.

“The exports that we do is obviously at the rate that AESO sets, so it is good for us,” said Strandlund. “But more importantly, it helps support the grid overall so it doesn’t collapse the whole entire provincial grid.”

As for Medicine Hat residents, Strandlund doesn’t foresee any capacity issues for the community and expects locals to use power as per usual.

He added the numbers he’s seeing this week are a drop in the bucket compared to Medicine Hat’s power usage over the sweltering summer months.

“The City [winter] load is usually a lot lower than a summer load,” he said. “So, it’s pretty steady around 130 megawatts of usage and that’s typical from previous years. So, not much change.”

AESO reported a provincial one-day consumption record was reached on Tuesday, with just over 11,600 megawatts of electricity being used in Alberta.

A number of alerts have also been issued while the entirety of the province remains under an extreme cold warning, forcing AESO to request Albertans to dial back their consumption.

“They’d also like to encourage people to avoid using power between the peak times between 5:00 and 7:00 at night and first thing in the morning from 7:00 to 9:00 pm,” said Strandlund. “That will help them manage the overall grid.”

Strandlund added that likely won’t have much of an impact on the local system, but did say the more energy saved equals more electricity sold to the provincial grid.

There have been no power outages locally attributed to the cold snap this week.