Alta. lifts cap on wind power

Alberta’s provincial government has removed its limit on the amount of wind power that can be generated provincewide, opening the door to more than double its current wind power capacity by year’s end alone.

The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) imposed a temporary cap of 900 megawatts (MW) in 2006 to ensure the overall reliability of the power grid while wind power was studied, the province said in a release.

AESO and the Canadian Wind Energy Association ran a wind forecasting study in February to address the issues of reliability in the province’s wind supply.

“Through this work and other initiatives, we are now confident we have the information required to remove the threshold on wind power in Alberta,” AESO CEO Dale McMaster said in the release.

While several proposed projects elsewhere in the country have generated some concern among local residents over noise and other effects, rural communities and farmers have also lined up to support wind farms as a rural development boon that provides lease revenue to farmers who host wind turbines on their land.

Over 500 more MW of wind power are already forecast to be added to the 497 MW currently online, the province said. Including the projects coming online, there are about 5,500 MW of proposed wind power generation projects in the queue awaiting approval, the government noted.