Energy-rich Alberta may be freezing in the dark

Albertans could see their electricity shut off for up to two hours at a time this winter because of a critical shortage of power in the province.

And Edmonton Power may also ask its customers to limit block heater use to four hours, to put off doing laundry until after 8 p.m. or to put up fewer Christmas lights.

Dale McMaster, chief operations officer for the Power Pool of Alberta, says power reserves -- usually kept at 20 per cent above demand -- have dropped as low as one per cent.

McMaster says because of uncertainty surrounding the province's deregulation of the industry, new generation plants haven't been built. And that means the power supply isn't keeping pace with the growing power demands of Alberta's burgeoning economy.

No major generating plants have been built since 1994. And while two new plants will come on stream by December, David Morris of the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board says they won't generate enough power to have much impact on supply.

"It could be a tight winter," says Alberta Power president Dick Frey, adding that he hasn't seen reserves this low since the early 1970s. "They're saying it's going to be colder this year so people might use more power than we expect."

Last year's mild El Nino winter helped power companies deal with lower than usual power reserves of 3.3 per cent. But this year, meteorologists predict the La Nina weather system will bring colder than average temperatures to Alberta.

Power companies say they could face problems if there are long cold spells this winter and if major generators fail or they are unable to import enough power from Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Companies are preparing contingency plans to deal with those possibilities and avoid a system-wide crash.

Edmonton Power spokesperson Michele Cadario says they will first ask industries to cut back. If that isn't enough, the utility companies may randomly cut power to residential users for 30 minutes at a time, similar to a series of cuts on June 11 that left thousands of Edmonton and Calgary homes and businesses in the dark.

Alberta Power says it may cut power for a maximum of two hours, but the company will first try to persuade industrial users to cut down.

Frey says other options include paying companies to reduce their load or asking them to change production hours so they won't strain the system during the peak hours of 4:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

POWER RESERVES

Over the last decade, power demands have increased by an average of 4.7 per cent per year, while supply has only increased at 3.6 per cent per year.

RESERVE PROJECTIONS

How much supply exceeds demand: 1996 - 14%; 1997 - 3.3%; 1998 - 1%

When power sources from B.C, and Sask. are factored in: 1996 - 21%; 1997 - 14%; 1998 - 10%