Minister Nathan Neudorf met with constituents at a Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce event on January 25, 2024. (Photo: LNN)

By Joel Mendelson

Neudorf meets with Lethbridge residents to discuss state of utilities in Alberta

Jan 26, 2024 | 11:00 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Provincial Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf met with his constituents on Thursday, January 25, 2024.

At the event hosted by the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce, Neudorf, who also serves as the Lethbridge-East MLA, expressed his vision for the near future. He also provided answers to many questions asked by Lethbridge residents.

The main concern for many of those that attended the meeting was electricity. Focuses included prices, whether or not reliability will be improved going forward and if there is optimism for the future of the sector.

Neudorf touched on the prevalence of the electricity industry. He said, “People, maybe for the first time, are interested to understand the electricity grid, why prices are where they are, how it works, and what an energy only system is, compared to a capacity market, and where we’re going as a province.”

An energy only model is used in Alberta, meaning that generators are only paid for the energy they actually produce.

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In terms of the power grid alert issued earlier in January, the minister said it was a foreseeable issue.

READ MORE: Grid alert issued, Albertans asked to conserve energy

Neudorf said, ““We began the three inquiries and two studies in August. We saw that this was a potential for the future, we hoped that we wouldn’t get here quite this quickly but we did.”

He continued, “Now we know that that work [fixing electricity sector] will definitely be very very important, very relevant for our system going forward so that we can answer the questions of reliability and affordability, and make sure that we have good planning that is transparent, and accountable to the general taxpayer and rate payer within Alberta.”

Neudorf added that the power grid alert was also caused by the failures of two natural-gas plants, which ultimately put strain on the grid and sent it over the edge.

Going forward, Neudorf is confident that Alberta’s market structure will help in the speedy recovery of the sector.

He said, ““Because we have an open market, and we’re proud to have an open market, that [timeline] is a little difficult to predict. We create the framework for investment , and then we have to see what that investment response will be. Given the queue for the iso [Independent System Operators] has increased since the pause began, we think that there’s a lot of interest to continue to invest in Alberta.”

Neudorf added, “Now we want to make sure we set the parameters up so that we get the right type of investment to make sure we have the stability, reliability and resiliency in our grid to handle power outages, really cold weather, really hot weather, forest fires, whatever the case may be.”

The minister also spoke on the possibility of discrepancies in energy bills. He advised, ““We have the Utility Consumer Advocate (UCA) [that] can help individuals with their bills and the choices that they make. We also have the Market Service Administrator (MSA), where they regulate and govern market behaviors.”

READ MORE: Alberta’s renewable energy pause could become lingering stumble, observers say

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