By Patrick Burles - @PatrickBurles on Twitter

ENMAX president visits Lethbridge to discuss the future of energy

Nov 9, 2016 | 1:40 PM

LETHBRIDGE – The future of the energy industry – both locally and on an international scale – was the focus of a discussion in our city Wednesday (Nov. 9), involving ENMAX President and CEO, Gianna Manes.

She spoke to the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce, going over the major implications for communities, customers, industry and business.

“One of the main messages that I’m trying to convey is that the electricity industry, across North America, Canada and here in Alberta, is going through significant transition,” explained Manes. “We’re changing out from a coal based fleet of electricity generation to natural gas and renewables, and those transitions, we need to be prepared to use the right amount of time, ensure we have investment signals that will allow that investment to take place. At the same time, customers have an expectation we will continue to be reliable, affordable and increasingly cleaner.”

With the Alberta government committing to a plan that will see 30-per cent of Alberta’s electricity coming from renewable sources by 2030, Manes says they’re already hard at work.

“Preparations start now, I mean, we invest in this sector in generation assets that last decades, and they also take a very long time to build, it’s three to four, five year cycles just to get them built, so we need to always be planning ahead.

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“What we look for as an industry, is what type of environment are we going to be building it into, what’s the market structure, what is the renewable framework that’s going to be here, what type of incentives are there going to be? So we are watching very carefully the policies that the Alberta government [is] continuing to announce as we speak,” Manes stated.

Manes cited wind, solar and battery advancements as areas that will likely grow, but added that stability also needs to be considered further down the road.

“We also need to make sure that we backstop that with investments in what I see as natural gas plants,” said Manes. “Even though it feels like the wind might blow all the time in Lethbridge, it doesn’t always blow, so we need to make sure we can keep that reliability on our electricity.”

With so many potential changes coming, she did acknowledge that consumers will eventually feel an impact.

“Transitions, no matter what we’re going through, from coal to natural gas to renewables, this does come at a cost. I think it’s important for people to recognize that whether we’re just replacing old equipment that needs to be replaced because it’s at end of life, or because we’re doing it for environmental purposes, these investments do cost money, so I do see the electricity rate of Alberta going up over time to be able to make this transition.

“The good thing for right now is we’re at a very low point in electricity in terms of just the electricity itself,” Manes continued. “This is the lowest electricity prices that Alberta has seen in more than 20-years.”