Large-scale power outages were avoided last weekend thanks to residents heeding the warning to reduce energy use, but what happens if rotating outages were to occur?
Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) issued a grid alert on Jan. 13, warning of a high possibility of rotating power outages as a result of high demand for electricity due to the cold and limited imports of power from other provinces.
AESO called on Albertans to reduce electricity to essential use only. An emergency alert was issued just before 7 p.m., leading to a significant drop in energy demand, AESO said.
The grid alert ended before 9 p.m. and rotating power outages were avoided.
In the event power outages are needed, AESO said it would direct distribution facility owners (DFOs) to reduce power on a proportionate basis across the province.
Outages would take place simultaneously, but each DFO would manage outages at its level. Last Saturday night, AESO said each outage would last about 30 minutes, if needed.
Fortis is the DFO in the Athabasca region and would work with AESO and AltaLink to identify where electricity could be temporarily and safely interrupted, according to a statement from Dora L’Heureux, a stakeholder relations manager out of Fortis’s St. Albert office.
“Load shedding is a process that is planned for, and carefully managed, by electric utilities. The areas that could be affected in a load shedding event are predetermined based on the types of customers that would require power in that locality,” said L’Heureux in a Jan. 16 email. “For example, we would not perform load shedding in areas that have critical load like hospitals and other essential infrastructure or in locations with large numbers of residential customers.”
“In most cases, load shedding events last for controlled durations and affect sites that can tolerate service interruptions, including small oil & gas extraction sites, etc.,” finished L’Heureux.
Town of Athabasca CAO Rachel Ramey said the town had been ready to go if the situation had progressed further. Thanks to a recent study on Athabasca’s climate change vulnerabilities, Ramey said the town has a plan for what to do in situations like these.
“We already have the backups in place, we have emergency plans in place, and we went through that exercise where if this becomes a reality, we have some documents in place to look at some planning for climate change,” said Ramey. “We would still be able to run our systems — water and sewer is covered; we have backup generators at all of our plants so we could still provide safe water and sewer systems.”
The Village of Boyle was also prepared for the blackout — unlike Athabasca, Boyle distributes their own natural gas as well, and CAO Warren Griffin said they had applied for grants in previous years to ensure they could provide essential services through rolling brownouts.
“The way our systems are set up, we still have a backup for our water systems to continue, and our sewer systems will have some limited functionality. We applied for a grant to put in a generator for a station. Our main services are able to withstand a blackout for sure,” said Griffin.
With files from Robert Korotyszyn
