City council of St. Albert proposed to go into the energy industry to become more independent of larger electrical corporations. Our city has received accolades about being on the cutting edge of technology and, as cities go, is considered a “smart” city. But the purchase of energy and transmission lines may, or may not, be considered smart depending on how they handle extraneous issues.
As technology expands there is a growing trend for businesses and homes to become more energy efficient to the point of becoming off-the-grid. Presently, many of these new homes and businesses bite the financial bullet and install solar panel arrays and/or small wind turbines to be part of innovation; however, as more homes and businesses bring this innovation to their buildings and facilities and as battery technology advances, they will undoubtedly demand that the law presently requiring them to pay approximately 75 per cent of their present energy bill for transmission and other fees should not apply to them because they are off the grid; not using the existing lines of transmission for any of their energy. If the City of St. Albert wishes to prevent a wholesale class action lawsuit it would be wise for them to consider an amendment to the law to allow for and encourage growth of our electrical energy in our “smart” city. Home and business owners would then face significantly reduced costs, which may in turn bring new people and businesses to our community.
The key to energy development is storage, not transmission lines. Although there has been some development on energy storage technology today, safety and repeatability of complete load gain-and-loss appears to be elusive. This problem is being addressed and some companies have claimed that they can make electrical energy storage commercially available within three years (without fires). When this occurs, the City of St. Albert will still be holding the deeds to transmission lines even though they are not transmitting energy (to the extent that they were and eventually at all?). Our “smart” city should consider this when purchasing an energy company or the rights for transmission in St. Albert.
Roland Nelson, St. Albert
