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Calgary’s electricity system saw rotating power outages as the provincial grid operator issued an alert on Friday morning.
ENMAX Power reduced power to several communities across the city around 9 a.m. following a provincewide directive from the Alberta Electric System Operator to limit consumption due to “an imbalance in supply and demand.” Power was restored by 9:30 a.m.
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Edmonton’s EPCOR conducted similar outages and restored full power around the same time.
AESO declared a grid alert at 6:49 a.m. Friday due to tight supply, anticipating generation would return to normal by 10 a.m. At 9:30 a.m., the operator said the grid “continues to be strained” and urged Albertans to conserve power where possible.
“We are back into a tight supply situation this morning due to multiple generators being offline, low wind generation, and solar not yet producing any significant megawatts this morning. We have thermal generation coming online but it is slower than anticipated,” said Dianne Kossman, senior communications advisor with AESO.
A log of AESO energy alerts in the province shows multiple power generation stations going on and offline late Thursday and early Friday morning.
This is Alberta’s second grid alert this week, the first caused by an “unexpected outage of thermal generation” during peak usage hours on Wednesday evening. Kossman said that outage required AESO to dip into its emergency reserves “to meet demand and maintain system reliability.”
“There are multiple generators returning to service today, which should alleviate any ongoing concerns,” she said.
Monday marked the first time AESO has implemented rotating outages in more than a decade, the last coming during Calgary’s 2013 floods.
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