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Extreme cold: Threat of rolling blackouts eases after Albertans warned to conserve power

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AESO projected the Alberta power grid would face a 100-200 MW shortfall of electricity during peak evening hours Saturday.

The threat of rotating power outages eased late Saturday only hours after Albertans were warned to reduce electricity usage as brutally low temperatures, which sparked a days-long extreme cold warning, continue to wreak havoc.

“Albertans are asked to immediately reduce their electricity use to essential needs only,” stated a release from the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), issued alongside an Alberta Emergency Alert around 6:45 p.m. “Reducing peak electricity demand through province-wide conservation will minimize the high potential for rotating outages (Saturday) evening.”

The statement said AESO projected the Alberta grid would face a 100-200 MW shortfall of electricity during peak evening hours.
Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf followed the alert with a statement of his own, explaining: “extreme weather in Saskatchewan and British Columbia is impacting electricity sharing, which is also a contributing factor.”

Neudorf called on Albertans to:

  • Turn off unnecessary lights and electrical appliances;
  • Minimize the use of space heaters; delay the use of major power-consuming appliances such as washers, dryers and dishwashers;
  • Delay charging electric vehicles and/or plugging in block heaters;
  • Cook with your microwave, crockpot or toaster oven instead of an electric stove or oven;
  • Limit the use of kitchen or bathroom ventilation fans;
  • Work on a laptop instead of a desktop computer;
  • Unplug electric appliances when not in use, as they continue to drain energy even if they’re off (or use a power bar to cut power to multiple appliances with a single button);
  • Close curtains/shades/blinds to cover drafty windows.

“Albertans have a history of pulling together in times of emergency,” Neudorf said in the statement. “If we all make small changes like those listed above, we can keep each other safe through another extremely cold evening.”

Shortly before 9 p.m., AESO shared a message on social media thanking Albertans for their efforts to reduce power consumption.

“Your conservation efforts quickly reduced electricity demand and the risk of rotating outages,” AESO wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

A few minutes later, the operator of the province’s electrical grid said its alert had ended.

The current cold conditions led to Alberta breaking a power consumption record on Thursday, while a power grid alert was also issued Friday.

 

Man killed after vehicle collides with snowplow in northeast Calgary

One man died after his vehicle collided with a snowplow to start a weekend in Calgary still plagued by extreme cold.

The accident occurred around 10:30 p.m. Friday when a Jeep collided head-on with a snowplow in the 3600 block of Westwinds Dr. N.E.

“As the road began to curve, the driver of the Jeep failed to negotiate the curve and entered the path of the oncoming snowplow, resulting in a fatal collision,” city police said in press release.

Said EMS spokesman Stuart Brideaux: “There was quite substantial damage and fire … the single occupant of the (snowplow) wasn’t injured but the sole occupant of the SUV was deceased at the scene.”

Westwinds Dr. between 54 Ave. N.E., and the entrance to McKnight-Westwinds LRT station was closed for several hours following the death of the 27-year-old man.

Speed is being investigated as a factor, say police.

Almost as life-threatening is the extreme cold caused by a polar vortex that’s plummeted windchill temperatures below -40C — a weather system that descended on the city mid-week.

The average high temperature for this time of year is -3C.

Extreme cold conditions place emergency medical services ‘on high alert’

EMS, meanwhile, continues to be busy dealing with victims of the arctic temperatures, responding to 60 weather-related calls since Tuesday morning, said Brideaux.

That’s 20 more than the tally as of Friday morning, he said.

“We’re on a high alert and certainly concerned about the welfare of the vulnerable population, especially people unhoused or living rough,” he said.

Many of those calls involve frostbite affecting people’s extremities and the possibility of hypothermia, said Brideaux.

“Hopefully, this cold abates in a little while — at -40C, it’s another world and we work in this just like everyone else,” he said.

Emergency homeless shelters are at more than 90 per cent capacity, an official with the Calgary Homeless Foundation said Friday, with some of the unhoused population choosing to sleep on the streets due to safety concerns in the facilities.

But the foundation’s Matt Nomura said social agency workers are making the rounds to homeless encampments “ensuring safety and a compassionate approach asking, ‘how do we get you off the street.’ ”

“But there are individuals making the choice to sleep rough.”

Daniel Boccalon, left and Renato Takata with the Salvation Army serve warm soup and coffee in the organization’s warming station outside the Southland CTrain station on Thursday. Photo by Gavin Young /Postmedia

Environment Canada has maintained an extreme cold warning with windchill temperatures expected to dip to -43C Sunday morning with a high reading of -37C during the afternoon.

“Frostbite in minutes,” said the federal agency’s website.

Temperatures are expected to rise to -18C Monday and rebound to -7C Tuesday.

But temperatures around -30C on Saturday continued to bedevil motorists who navigated icy streets and, in any immobilized scenarios had to abandon hope for a swift rescue.

Commuting and travel continue to be impacted by deep freeze

The Alberta Motor Association reported that drivers needing a tow or winching would have to wait 96 hours, while a battery boost or tire change wouldn’t be possible for 84 hours.

The bitterly arctic conditions continued to wreak havoc at the Calgary International Airport with its departure schedule as of 3:30 p.m. Saturday showing 14 cancelled flights — all involving WestJet — and 28 delays.

That’s an improvement over Friday afternoon when there were 38 cancelled flights — most of them WestJet aircraft — and 23 delays.

So frigid were conditions that de-icing procedures in a host of Western Canadian cities, including Calgary, weren’t possible, said WestJet.

“Due to ongoing extreme cold weather conditions targeting Canada’s prairie region and winter storm system that moved through Ontario yesterday evening, WestJet continues to face significant operational impacts cascading throughout our network,” WestJet spokeswoman Madison Kruger said in a statement Saturday.

“Additionally, to ensure safety above all, we continue to limit the amount of time our crews and ground partners are working outside, while frigid temperatures leave essential equipment such as bridges and fuel stations, inoperable.”

Travellers are being advised to check the status of their flight before heading to the airport.

It’s so cold WinSport has extended its suspension of operations at its ski-snowboarding hill until Monday due to the frigid conditions.

And some Calgary businesses are freezing their activities, including the Deane House Restaurant in Inglewood, which posted on X on Saturday they’re “temporarily closed due to damages incurred during the extreme cold temperatures.”

 

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Japan’s SoftBank returns to profit after gains at Vision Fund and other investments

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TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.

Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.

Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).

SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.

The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.

WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.

SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.

SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.

SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.

The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.

___

Yuri Kageyama is on X:

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Trump campaign promises unlikely to harm entrepreneurship: Shopify CFO

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Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.

“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.

“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”

Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.

On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.

If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.

These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.

If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.

However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.

He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.

“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.

Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.

The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.

Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.

Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.

Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.

Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.

Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”

In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.

“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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RioCan cuts nearly 10 per cent staff in efficiency push as condo market slows

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TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.

The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.

The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.

RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.

The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.

RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:REI.UN)

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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