The infrastructure will allow the province to accommodate more renewable energy
A 130-kilometre transmission line is set to be built in central Alberta in a joint project between Calgary-based ATCO and AltaLink — infrastructure that will allow the province to accommodate more renewable energy.
The Central East Transfer-Out project — which will transport electricity in the counties of Red Deer, Lacombe and Stettler — will supply more than 750 megawatts of electricity to Alberta’s grid.
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The line will help limit “congestion” in Alberta’s power grid which will allow more electricity to come on to the grid in the region, said Melanie Bayley, president of ATCO Electric.
“There’s a lot of new renewable projects in the queue (and) on the books from these renewable generators that they want to build, but they’ll only build it if they believe that they have access to the market through the transmission system,” Bayley said.
“A project like this opens up that access.”
The $513-million transmission line is being built with the support of a $283.5-million low-interest loan from the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB), the federal Crown corporation responsible for supporting revenue-generating infrastructure projects. It received approval from the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) in 2021 and major construction is projected to start this month. Environmental and geotechnical surveys along with land acquisitions have already been completed.
CIB chose to provide the loan in part because of the opportunities it provides for renewable energy developers to build projects in central Alberta.
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“(These projects) help us meet growing electricity demand, but they also help us balance a grid and make mixes of renewable sources in a more reliable way that allows the grid to keep functioning,” said Ehren Cory, CEO of the CIB.
The bank has allocated $10 billion for clean electricity projects. The joint project between ATCO and AltaLink is the first it has supported under that portfolio. It has also lent money to renewables projects, nuclear reactors, hydro and battery storage.
Transmission lines are only capable of transporting limited amounts of electricity, Bayley said. By adding more capacity, she said, greater amounts of renewable electricity projects can be supported.
“It’s no different than congestion on a road. Think about when you’re trying to merge onto Deerfoot (and it’s at a standstill) … if they add another lane or build another Deerfoot right beside it, suddenly more people can get on,” she said. “It’s exactly the same on the electric transmissions system.”
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The loan meanwhile allows the lines to be built with minimal impact to Albertans’ energy bills, said Gary Hart, president and CEO of AltaLink.
Renewable energy sources require more interconnections and distribution sources because of their intermittency, Hart said, making projects like these important to supporting more renewable projects.
“If we start replacing high-capacity-factor gas with low-capacity-factor renewables, then we’re going to need more transmission systems or distribution systems to do that.”
ATCO is building 85 kilometres of the transmission line while AltaLink is constructing the remaining 50 kilometres.
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