Provincial energy deregulation and Canada’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have opened the door to alternative and “green” energy projects in Alberta, experts say.

At the same time, the Alberta government must do more to promote and support energy efficiency and energy conservation, speakers told a recent national energy and environment conference in Calgary.

The province will spend about $400 million on temporary rebates to homeowners to offset electricity and natural gas costs that were rising earlier in the year. But this strategy can actually encourage people to consume more energy rather than conserve it, speakers said at the Canadian Energy Research Institute’s 2001 Energy Environment Conference.

“Rebates do not address the fundamental causes (of energy consumption) or offer long-term sustainable solutions,” said Paul Hunt, vice-president of Climate Change Central. The provincially funded independent agency is co-ordinating efforts in Alberta to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for global warming.

Business Edge file photo
Richard Adamson of Mariah Energy poses with micro-turbine system.

The Alberta government should establish an office of energy efficiency, with a $100-million revolving fund, to co-ordinate and encourage energy-efficient projects, said Andrew Pape-Salmon, director of sustainable energy for the Pembina Institute, an environmental research and policy organization based in Drayton Valley.

The City of Edmonton and the state of Texas both have revolving funds that provide low- or no-interest loans to businesses and consumers for energy-efficiency retrofits, Pape-Salmon said. “You can go out and buy a truck in Alberta for zero-interest financing. Yet when you want to insulate your home, it costs you 10 per cent interest on a (bank) loan.”

Hunt said that Alberta also needs to diversify its energy sources, to reduce the risk of future high energy prices and the liability of meeting greenhouse gas targets under the Kyoto agreement on climate change. “Distributed energy is able to do more with less, and would maximize the output from Alberta’s fossil fuel resources,” he said.

Distributed energy involves using small-scale generating systems located within or very close to communities, to deliver power and heat directly to users. Technologies employed include small natural gas-fuelled micro-turbines, wind turbines and biomass plants (which burn organic matter such as sawmill waste).

About 75 per cent of the province’s electricity is generated by large coal-fired power plants near Wabamun west of Edmonton, then transmitted via high-voltage lines to southern Alberta.

Increasing the use of small distributed energy systems would help address growing public concerns about the social and environmental impacts of large coal- and gas-fuelled power plants, Hunt said.

“Distributed energy holds the potential for revolutionary change.”

Distributed generation within a community also is more energy efficient than electricity delivered long distances over wires, Hunt added. By the time electricity produced by TransAlta and EPCOR’s Wabamun-area coal-fired plants reaches Calgary, up to 25 per cent of the power is lost over the transmission lines.

The Wabamun-Edmonton-Calgary transmission system also is nearing full capacity, yet both TransAlta and EPCOR have applied to expand their coal-fired generators. Building new transmission lines will cost nearly $1 billion and take 10 years, Hunt said.

Distributed power systems can be installed in a matter of several months, if not weeks. They can stand alone or be plugged into province-wide electricity grids.

Alberta’s large coal-fired plants also waste the heat they produce by sending it out a stack into the air, Hunt said. Distributed energy systems, in contrast, are designed to generate both electricity and heat. “Distributed generation and small power plants will do to big power plants what PCs did to mainframe computers,” Hunt predicted.

But Canada and North America trail other countries, such as Denmark, Finland and The Netherlands, in installing distributed energy systems, says Richard Damecour, vice-president of Kattner FVB District Energy Inc. The Toronto-based consulting firm helps companies and organizations develop localized or “district” energy systems that deliver both heat and power within a community. District energy is more cost-effective than huge power plants typically located in the countryside, Damecour said.

Compared with Ontario and other provinces, Alberta until recently was a “vast wasteland” for pursuing district energy projects, Damecour added. But rising energy costs in Alberta earlier in the year have awakened interest, he said.

The City of Calgary has hired Kattner FVB to do a feasibility study on building a district heat-and-power plant and delivery system in the downtown. It would be part of the East Village redevelopment, planned for a 20-hectare site east of the Municipal Building complex, said Ald. Bob Hawkesworth.

A preliminary estimate shows the district energy system would cost about $60 million, including $41.5 million for the plant and $18.6 million for the associated piping and building connections, Hawkesworth said.

More definitive cost-benefit results are expected in November. The study will include recommendations on whether the system is feasible and, if it is, whether it should be publicly or privately owned or a combination of both, and how the city can generate revenues from the project.

There is more acceptance now compared with two years ago by large utility companies in integrating distributed and district energy systems into large power grids, said Richard Adamson, vice-president of engineering for Mariah Energy Corp. in Calgary.

Alberta is leading the country in establishing standardized interconnection guidelines for hooking local systems into large grids, he said.

Mariah Energy has developed a combined heat-and-power system that uses micro-turbines made by Capstone Turbine Corp. in California. Mariah installed its system last year in a 12-unit home-office condominium in Inglewood in southeast Calgary, and is planning more projects in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.