The Alberta government announced Thursday that it will pay more than a billion dollars over the next 14 years to three energy companies, as compensation for ending coal-fired electricity production at six plants in the province.
At this time, 18 coal power plants are online in Alberta – generating more than half of the power used by Albertans. Most of those plants will reach the end of their life cycle before 2030, but six of them will not.
The province’s plan will pay the companies that run those six plants: TransAlta, Capital Power and ATCO a total of about $1.4 billion in compensation for shutting down those plants on or before December 31, 2030.
The province said the money for the payments will come from the existing price placed on carbon emitters, not energy bills of power consumers.
“This is the way that we take the price on pollution that is charged to the large emitters, not the economy-wide carbon levy, and we recycle it back into, from the electricity system back into a new electricity system,” Environment Minister Shannon Phillips said.
Officials said the plan is to stop coal-fired power generation, and convert the plants to natural gas – at a cost of about $100 million per plant.
The province addressed concerns over the economic impact on the communities and workers that would be affected by coal power plants stopping operations, the province said it plans to keep operations going in those areas and to retrain people.
With files from Jeremy Thompson
