Chase Energy Canada Limited

Genesee#3 was offline several times starting at 10:28 and finally back online at 00:55 this morning.

Maxim Power Corp. has struck a $12.95 million deal, selling its Alberta Power Project facilities to AltaGas Pipe-line Partnership. AltaGas has operated the four southern Alberta natural-gas power plants since 2007, and bought their total capacity of 26 megawatts since 2005 under a long-term tolling agreement. Proceeds from the sale would be funneled toward its Deerland, H.R. Milner coal-fired power plant expansion and Mine 14 projects.

A 15-year agreement that calls for Minnesota Power to buy hydroelectricity from Manitoba Hydro beginning in 2020 was unanimously approved today by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. The 250 megawatt (MW) power purchase agreement will provide a competitive energy resource for customers of Minnesota Power, a utility division of ALLETE. Additional hydropower will support Minnesota Power resource planning goals of more efficiency, flexibility and diversity while lessening its dependence on coal and lowering emissions from its generation fleet.

Shear Wind Inc has asked the Nova Scotia government for environmental approvals for a proposed expansion. Glen Dhu, the largest wind farm in Nova Scotia, has been in operation since March. The 62-megawatt first phase has been producing more power than expected. Shear Wind will also be proposing a 50MW wind project in the Canaan Mountains area in northern Nova Scotia. However, developers can only be awarded one project under the competitive bidding process, which is being overseen by an independent renewable energy administrator.

After several attempts, Keephills#1 came back online at 18:12 yesterday.

enXco Service Canada Inc. has secured a multi-year agreement with Suncor Energy and Teck Resources Limited to provide operations and maintenance services for the Wintering Hills Wind Power Project. Commissioned in 2011, the 88MW Wintering Hills Wind Power Project located near Drumheller, Alberta is comprised of 55 General Electric 1.6MW wind turbines.

Gulf Oil LP, the fastest growing branded US marketer of petroleum products; yesterday announced its entry into the retail electricity market via the launch of Gulf Electricity. Beginning in Connecticut in March 2012, Gulf Electricity will offer residents and commercial customers the opportunity to save as much as 10 percent on the energy portion of their power bills by switching from their traditional utility suppliers. There is no fee to switch to Gulf Electricity. Customers will continue to receive their bills from their current utility, which will continue to handle power delivery and repair services. Beginning in March 2012, customers can sign up with Gulf Electricity. The process takes less than five minutes and can be done by visiting www.gulfelectricity.com.

Genesee#2 was offline from 13:56 to 22:29 yesterday. March prices came tumbling down as sellers length flooded the market. Insiders suggested that “stop losses” may have been hit causing a further sell off.

This month marks ten years of de-regulation in the Texas electricity market. One complaint has been that Texas has numerous retail electrical providers who really add no value to this system. By law they can’t own wires. They don’t own the distribution system, they don’t own the meter. By law they can’t own any distribution sources. So they are truly an unnecessary intermediary. Defenders of deregulation argue that Texas has seen unprecedented growth in the past ten years. Despite that, Texas has one of the lowest electric reserve margins in the country. That means they are at a greater risk of rolling blackouts during times of high energy use. If you compare this industry restructuring with what happened in telecommunications, it was in the early 80s that they started that process it wasn’t until the mid to late 90s that the Internet really took off and it was only recently that the internet has gone mobile.

Toronto Hydro-Electric System Limited reports that at approximately 5 p.m. yesterday, power was restored to 28 St. Albans Road, 15 and 25 Viking Lane, and 5229 and 5233 Dundas Avenue West. As a result of failed equipment, the power was interrupted at 5:07am. Power was rerouted for some customers but for crews to do repairs, power to these buildings could not be restored until the repairs were complete.

Toronto Hydro-Electric System Limited was awarded the “Smart Metering Project of the Year” yesterday by the editors at POWERGRID International magazine and PennWell Corp. at DistribuTECH 2012 in San Antonio. Toronto Hydro first piloted an Elster Smart Metering solution in 2004 to comply with the Ontario government’s Smart Metering initiative. Since that first deployment, the project has grown and the company is utilizing Elster’s EnergyAxis Smart Grid systems to read approximately 650,000 electricity endpoints.

Sundance#5 back online at 05:32 this morning.

Renewable Energy Systems Canada Inc. has been awarded the Balance of Plant construction contract for the 150MW Capital Power Halkirk Wind Project, the largest wind project currently under construction in Alberta.

SkyFire Energy Inc. announced that as the standard cost of electricity continues to reach record levels in Alberta, the opposite is true for solar energy which is now, in most cases, better than buying power from your utility. While there is still an upfront cost to investing in a solar system, there are financing options available through most banking institutions at historically low rates. Unlike most home improvements, which depreciate in value with age, solar panels will increase in value over time if electricity prices continue to rise. Calgary is the sunniest major city in Canada and solar customers receive the additional benefit of receiving credit for any excess power returned to the grid.

A new patent for a system for generating electricity – the system includes a platform having a top surface; the platform floats on a body of water and includes a plurality of energy modules. Each energy module produces electricity from a different source of energy and is affixed to the platform. Each module contributes produced electricity to the system for storage and distribution. Modules may include wind turbines for generating electricity from wind, water-driven generators for generating electricity from water currents, solar panels for generating electricity from solar energy, an apparatus which floats on water and converts kinetic energy of wave movements into electricity, and an apparatus which extends below the water where the platform is located upon and generates electricity from differences in water temperature at various levels of water depth. An apparatus may be mounted on the platform which produces hydrogen and oxygen gases through a process of electrolysis.

Keephills#2 went offline at 13:00 Friday; Sundance#5 went offline at 21:01 Friday; HR Milner went offline at 06:50 andf back on at 09:44 Saturday.

Building two north-south power lines will help Atco Power’s plan to build large hydro projects on two northern Alberta rivers to replace aging coal-fired electricity plants. Old coal plants are being phased out to meet new federal greenhouse-gas regulations and the company hopes to replace them with hydro, natural gas and more cogeneration. The company has completed soil testing and other technical work on the two sites on the Athabasca River and is also looking at an 800 megawatt plant on the Slave River though the project is on hold after an area aboriginal band opposed hydro development. The company was “shocked” when hydro power was not included in the AESO’s recent forecast for electricity generation for the base load. Atco said that converting older coal plants to natural gas will still not meet current federal greenhouse-gas standards, which makes large-scale hydro projects attractive.

Industrial and commercial power consumers urged provincial regulators to let them intervene before ruling on how much Trans Alta Corp. should pay for gaming Alberta’s electricity market. The groups argued to the Alberta Utilities Commission they should be able to present evidence about the effect of the November 2010 incidents that resulted in inflated provincial electricity prices.

Direct Energy is cutting 500 jobs in Canada as the company shifts its headquarters from Toronto to Houston in order to concentrate on key growth markets in the northeastern United States and Texas. In total, Direct Energy, one of North America’s largest energy and energy-related services providers, will still have about 2,000 employees in Ontario and roughly 6,000 across North America.

The battle over new north-south power lines Thursday saw Edmonton-owned Epcor Utilities up against industrial power consumers worried the proposed $4-billion expansion will push electricity rates too high and force some to leave the province – forestry companies told the panel to delay approval until a public hearing is held to assess the need for two new 500-kilovolt, DC lines, especially with new power plants opening in the south. As power rates rise, big users such as Alberta Newsprint Company and others will build generation capacity on-site rather than rely on the grid. That needs to be taken into account when AESO makes its estimate on the need for expanded transmission.

For almost two full days this week, there was no jet engine-like roar from the massive furnace, no crackle of melting scrap metal and no sirens indicating red hot liquid steel was about to pour into the ladle below at AltaSteel’s east Edmonton mill. Industrial and commercial users account for nearly 85 per cent of demand for electricity in the province. For industrial electricity consumers who aren’t on a fixed-rate contract in this deregulated electricity market, those hourly price fluctuations are serious business. While residential electricity bills are calculated based on a monthly rate, industrial users are metered and billed hourly. Workers remain on-site and are paid to tend to other duties as they wait for prices to dip low enough to restart the plants. This week’s shutdowns were not the first for AltaSteel. Knights said the plant loses some hours each month because of high electricity prices, typically in the afternoon when people get home. A fixed-price contract is not an option for AltaSteel because those prices are prohibitive.

The province should be “upfront with consumers” if it wants to build new transmission lines large enough for exports of electricity and explain how they will benefit users; the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association told a hearing on Wednesday. The north-south grid is the “back-bone” of Alberta transmission, there is a lot of concern about who is paying for the proposed new lines and whether two lines are needed. “The elephant in the room is: Do you need the power or not?” Quebec exports a lot of electricity to the United States and uses the money to pay for the debt acquired in building the expanded hydroelectric system. But that’s not the case in Alberta, where the cost of new lines is paid upfront by consumers. Others also questioned the need for “unfettered transmission,” which is the goal of the Alberta Electric Systems Operator in proposing the two new lines. Joe Anglin, representing landowners on the north-south corridor, told the panel there is no requirement in legislation for the AESO to build that kind of transmission capacity. Rather, the legislation requires “reliable and economic operation of the system,” not zero congestion.

An environmental group asserts that the federal government greatly underestimates the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are produced by hydro electric facilities. A report issued by the Global Forest Watch concludes that the difference between emissions produced by fossil fuels and hydro electricity is not as great as was previously thought. The study concludes that the real quantity of hydro electric greenhouse gas emissions is between seven and 13 megatonnes of carbon dioxide. Most of these greenhouse gases are emitted in Quebec.

Nearly all presenters to date have opposed the transmission expansion and the way it was approved – and that trend is expected to continue when the hearings move to Edmonton today. So far only TransAlta, which owns coal-fired plants west of Edmonton, has supported the project at the hearings, saying investment in new coal-fired power generation may not come if the lines aren’t built.

Health Canada is drafting national guidelines for electricity-generating wind turbines that will establish a recommended minimum safe distance between the structures and homes. Across Canada many are concerned about “wind turbine syndrome,” a suite of symptoms suffered by some living in close proximity to wind turbines. Anxiety, sleeping problems and headaches are among the negative health effects some think are caused by the low frequency hum emitted by wind turbines. The voluntary draft guidelines are health-based, and focus on minimizing potential impacts such as sleep disturbance by recommending noise limits, sound measurement standards and minimum setback distances from homes and occupied dwellings.

Toronto Hydro-Electric System Limited reports that power has been restored to the building at 33 Princess Street as of 4:05 p.m. this afternoon. The outage was a result of a vault fire in the downtown area yesterday at 1:45 p.m. that interrupted power to customers in the area bounded by North – Queen Street E; East – Sumach/Cherry; South – Front Street East and West – Sherbourne Street.

Starting in 2013, Nanaimo Forest Products Ltd. will be generating and selling clean power to BC Hydro. Under its Integrated Power Offer, BC Hydro has signed a 15-year electricity purchase agreement with Nanaimo Forest Products Ltd. to purchase clean energy from a new 25 megawatt turbo-generation unit that is being constructed at the Harmac Pacific pulp mill located just south of Nanaimo, B.C.

Keephills#1 went offline at 22:29 and HR Milner went offline at 23:56. Expect AESO prices to be much higher today – in addition to losing these two units, the troublesome AESO Merit Order also has some huge changes today with only 70MW offered between $200 and $900(441MW yesterday) and 1684MW offered at $900 or higher(1179MW yesterday). Demand hit 10,609 megawatts at 6 p.m. yesterday breaking the record of 10,315 MW set one day earlier. AESO’s short term outage chart suggests we should get Keephills back tomorrow. There was 2.7bcf of natural gas was removed from storage yesterday.

ATCO and AltaLink have already spent about $200 million – money consumers could ultimately be on the hook for – on two proposed Edmonton-Calgary transmission lines that are now under review, according to Alberta Energy. The ministry has requested the two builders and operators of the respective lines to stop spending on the $3 billion project until a Critical Trans-mission Review Committee appointed by the premier reports Feb. 10. The companies are authorized to spend money to prepare for the construction of the lines, but the ministry has asked them to refrain from making unnecessary expenditures until a final decision is made. IPCAA executive director Sheldon Fulton filed a letter with the Alberta Utilities Commission at the end of November urging it to step in after the companies filed documents with the Transmission Facilities Cost Monitoring Committee showing they had already committed to spending more than $932 million. Fulton and other stake-holders complain the costs are not known until after they have been incurred and then there is a hearing after the fact to determine if they are justifiable and whether consumers should pay for the full amount.