A Smart Grid in Alberta
A smart grid delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using two-way digital technology to control appliances at consumers’ homes to save energy, reduce cost and increase reliability and transparency. It overlays the electricity distribution grid with an information and net metering system.
A smart grid accommodates renewable electrical energy and looks at making transmission and electrical energy sourcing more efficient.
Smart Grid development in Alberta presents a necessary evolution from a centralized, typically fossil fuel dependent, and unstable grid system to one that is decentralized, dependent upon renewable energy, and efficient. A smart grid will significantly help reduce CO2 emissions and increase cost-effectiveness for consumers and the electrical industry.
A Smart Grid should reflect the benefits of a proactive renewable energy policy and how renewables can provide baseload power, while considering lowering baseload demand – to introduce energy efficiency and decreasing overall consumption from industry and residential consumers .
Provincial deployment of the smart grid should come as part of a set of policies, as within a Green Energy Act, to evaluate and guide all impacted sectors and industries in the movement towards building the green energy industry in Alberta. Pressure on the provincial government is mounting to enact a long-term, strategic plan to enable and foster green energy growth. The federal government has recently announced a move to regulate coal-fired electricity generation to reduce greenhouse gases with expectations to phase out coal for electricity entirely.
Alberta's electricity supply mix is currently 75% coal. Alberta currently holds the CO2 record from absolute electricity emissions in Canada and as Ontario has begun to implement its Green Energy Act, Alberta will stand out like a sore thumb. Alberta is the last province in Canada that has not yet set out an effective green energy plan.
Meanwhile, subsidies directed towards the inefficient fossil fuel industry continue. The Alberta government should and must support the green energy industry as we have for fossil fuels in the province.
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