The 2023 Business Plan and Budget Proposal of the Alberta Electric System Operator (“AESO”) outlines the organization’s priorities and expenditures for the upcoming year. In developing this proposal, the AESO explained that stakeholders met one-on-one with a subset of AESO board and executive members to share their perspectives on what they believed the AESO should be focusing on in the near term. The AESO used these insights to inform its 2023 priorities.[1]
In Proceeding 26911, the Alberta Utilities Commission (the “Commission”) issues its decision regarding the proposed regional and bulk transmission rate design of the Alberta Electric System Operator (“AESO”). Alberta’s current regional and bulk transmission rate design recovers transmission costs through energy and coincident peak (“CP”) demand billing determinants. However, most intervenors agree that the associated CP charge overstates the cost of using the grid at peak times, allowing some customers to lower their bills by strategically reducing consumption. The AESO proposed a new rate design that lowers the influence of the CP charge and raises the energy charge to alleviate this issue.
In Proceeding 26911 the Alberta Electric System Operator (“AESO”) and several intervenors cross-examine each other’s evidence for and against the various bulk and regional rate design proposals before the Alberta Utilities Commission (the “Commission”).
Readers may remember our previous article describing the AESO’s rebuttal evidence for their bulk and regional rate design and modernized demand opportunity service application. The current rate design collects transmission costs through a mix of energy and peak demand billing determinants where a monthly coincident peak charge (“12-CP”) recovers two thirds of demand costs.
In Proceeding 27047, the Alberta Utilities Commission (“the Commission”) issues its decision regarding the adjusted metering practice (“AMP”) implementation plan that was proposed by the Alberta Electric System Operator (“AESO”).
The Alberta Legislature introduced Bill 22, the Electricity Statutes (Modernizing Alberta’s Electricity Grid) Amendment Act on April 27, 2022. The acceptance of this bill would make several amendments to the Alberta Utility Commission Act (“AUC Act”), the Electric Utilities Act (“EU Act”), and the Hydro and Electric Energy Act (“HEE Act”) to enable energy storage, encourage more self-supply with export, expand the responsibilities of the Minister of Energy (“the Minister”) and begin winding down the Balancing Pool by redistributing its responsibilities.[1]
In Alberta Utilities Commission (“the Commission”) proceeding 27013, the Commission Enforcement staff (“Enforcement Staff”) and ATCO Electric Ltd. (“ATCO Electric”) jointly file a settlement agreement concerning the contraventions and proposed penalties for ATCO Electric’s Jasper Interconnection Project (“Jasper Project”) procurement practices.
In proceeding 26510, the Alberta Utilities Commission (the Commission) issues its decision regarding Capital Power Corporation’s (Capital Power’s) complaint against FortisAlberta Inc.’s (Fortis’s) additional charges to Capital Power for the interconnected of the Strathmore Solar project (the Strathmore Project).
The Alberta Utilities Commission (the Commission) initiated Proceeding 26090 in November 2020 as a module of FortisAlberta Inc.’s (Fortis) 2022 Phase II Distribution Tariff Application (ID 25916). The goal of this proceeding was to determine if distribution-connected generation (DCG) credits should be continued in their current form, altered, or discontinued.
The Commission released its final report on the distribution system inquiry addressing the complexity surrounding the integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) into Alberta’s electric distribution system. DERs are defined as any technology connected to the distribution grid that affects the supply, demand, or storage of electricity.