Electricity's Spring Comes： More Choices More Affordable for Albertans

【CMHnews post】Reporter：Lin Wang     

    On the evening of May 6, 2024, Nathan Neudorf, Minister of Affordability and Utilities and Vice Chair of the Treasury Board, convened a Multicultural Media Roundtable to introduce how the provincial government is making electricity more affordable for Albertans. The Journalist from CMH News was invited to participate in this online interview.

    Neudorf: “Good evening everyone！Thank you so much for having us here this evening. As the Minister of Affordability and Utilities, the Premier has tasked me with leading the government's efforts to make life more affordable. For Alberta, we are continuing to take an all-government approach, as we work to build on our existing affordable measures to lower the cost of living for Albertans. In my role, I am particularly focused on lowering the cost of utilities for Albertans. Every single consumer and every single Albertan is impacted by the cost of electricity including small businesses and community groups.

    Over the past year, our government has already taken action to lower utility bills. We provide our Albertans with information and support through the utilities consumer advocate. We helped our Albertans by providing nearly a billion dollars in monthly rebates directly to their power bills through the electricity rebate program. Now we're helping to lower and stabilize local access fees and are ensuring our Albertans are better informed about their electricity options. We are doing this by renaming the default electricity rate to the rate of last resort through Bill 19, which is the Utilities Affordability Statutes Amendment Act. We're restricting the practice of economic withholding through new regulations which are estimated to save Albertans over a billion dollars on their power bills over the next three years. We've enabled innovative technology for the electricity system by proclaiming the electricity statutes modernizing Alberta's Electricity Grid Amendment Act in 2022. We announced our plans to restructure Alberta's electricity market to support long-term affordability. This is just a start of how our government is making sure that Albertans have affordable, reliable, and sustainable electricity on their Grid for generations to come.

    Today, I would like to talk more specifically about Bill 19, Utilities Affordability Statutes Amendment Act,  where we introduced legislation to help lower the cost of utility bills. If pass Bill 19, will make utility bills more affordable and predictable across a province saving the average Calgarian $145 per year families. On the default electricity rate, they could save  $937 per year. Bill 19 will also help our Albertans be better informed about their electricity rates. It is so important that Albertans know they have many options when it comes to their power bills and the utility consumer advocate is available to help them find the best option for them.”

    Q: “I just want to quickly ask the question about the role map with Saskatchewan， a  recent Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing with regards to SMRs small nuclear reactors or moving forward what kind of strategy and vision from now, maybe a short term between and to 2050？But maybe more short term that could help solve the demand on electricity in Alberta.”

    Neudorf: “I was in Regina last week (May 2, 2024) and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Minister Dustin Duncan in charge of their utilities in Saskatchewan, both furthering our learnings together. Saskatchewan has a huge deposit of Uranium, which is the fuel used to power nuclear generators. They are pursuing SMR technology over the next few years to be able to use that to strengthen their grid. We want to learn from them on their consultation, on their legal framework, on all the different things that they went through to make sure that they deal with all the questions about what they do with the waste. We also want to learn from them in terms of both our grid stability and increase our interconnectivity. If Saskatchewan generates and we're not able to because of power outages or whatever might happen, if we can increase what we can borrow from Saskatchewan that's very good for them because we're buying and that's very good for us. Because we're getting electricity the same other way those interties can help stabilize Saskatchewan's grid from our ability to generate when they're having a downturn either in weather or supply. And we're doing very well this strengthens our partnership and has the potential to strengthen the confederation. Because we can go allow our surplus generation to go through Saskatchewan all the way to Manitoba and maybe even down into the United States. That means that we're opening our marketplace with it, which is very exciting for our generators to realize that we don't just have to sell electricity to Albertans but we can sell to Canadians East-West and sometimes even North. And we can sell south into the United States of America and have a huge market there. So this is a very strong relationship, building steps with our closest trading partner in the confederation. Saskatchewan and I think it's very exciting for some of the potential in the near term definitely in the mid and longer term would we build these assets in this capability. It will mean more stability for our grid and their grid as well as more potential market access for all of us.”

    Q: “Could you define the maturity of this technology, the safety, and moving forward? Are we also increasing capacity, not replacing existing infrastructure?”

    Neudorf: “Many people don't realize that Canada began their nuclear journey in 1959 in Ontario. We've had nuclear capabilities since the early 1960s. All without incidents, it is very safe and Ontario is the leader in Canada in this field. Saskatchewan is learning from them as is New Brunswick and now Alberta as well. The small modular reactor technology is still developing. There are obviously small modular reactors on nuclear submarines. Ontario is building 4 SMRs, right now in their Darlington facility. The biggest concern is safety and Ontario and Saskatchewan have led very significant consultations on how to safely store any waste from these and for a very long time. Ontario has been storing its nuclear waste since 1964, very safely never ever an incident. Saskatchewan is learning from them and we're going to learn from both of them. On top of that, I think the next biggest issue is cost new technology is very expensive, which is why we're watching very closely how Ontario was building its SMRs. We want to learn from Saskatchewan, so we know how they can do it. The more jurisdictions around the world by this technology, the lower the cost will be. We want to grow the industry and lock step with that technology. Alberta has some uranium deposits up north as well. If this is the direction for a non-emitting, reliable, dispatchable energy source, which we all need, we think that we can accomplish all of those things together, reliability, sustainability, affordability and non-emitting, no carbon emissions, which is beneficial. So we want to plan well right now.

    So in the future, when the technology and affordability are there, we're gonna be ready to go and we're gonna be able to provide that avenue for our Albertans. Because we've done the work now ready for the future.”