Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says Ottawa is one of the reasons why her government has placed a moratorium on approving new wind and solar power projects, arguing the feds are preventing development of backup generation for renewable energy like natural gas.
“So I’ve told them, how can I bring on additional wind and solar if I’m not able to secure the reliability of my power grid by being able to bring on natural gas peaker plants? That’s the heart of the problem,” Smith said.“No one is proposing any new natural gas plants because the federal government has created so much uncertainty in the market.”
Leach said it’s possible the addition of cheap wind and solar energy could discourage natural-gas powered projects by lowering the price of electricity. But he said the reverse is also true — that fossil fuel projects could discourage green ones.Alberta halts approvals for large renewable projects amid development concerns
In a statement Thursday when the moratorium on new projects was announced, the government said the Alberta Utilities Commission would initiate an inquiry into issues of development on agricultural land, effect on scenery, reclamation security, the role of municipalities and system reliability. Smith told her radio audience on Saturday that a solar farm in her Brooks-Medicine Hat constituency in southern Alberta was covered for months with ice and snow and wasn’t producing power.