An ice fog hangs over steaming neighbourhoods in Calgary on Jan. 13. Weather warnings cover much of Canada this weekend, from arctic air flowing along British Columbia’s coast to extreme cold in the Prairies and storms moving through southern Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Extreme weather conditions tested Alberta’s power grid this weekend, promptingan unprecedented emergency alert on cellphones, warning consumers to conserve electricity to avoid potential blackouts.
At dinnertime on Saturday, the Alberta Emergency Management Agency issued an urgent, provincial-wide alert, saying that high demand placed the grid at a “high risk” of rotating power outages. It urged Albertans to limit their electricity use by turning off lights, minimizing the use of space heaters and delaying charging electric vehicles. Albertans responded, within minutes, by reducing demand, averting power outages – at least for now.
The alert comes as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is battling Ottawa over federal draft clean electricity regulations, and the province mandated a freeze last year on new renewable projects.
A combination of factors sparked the weekend alert: Two of the province’s natural gas plants were offline –one for maintenance, the other had reduced output owing to weather-related issues. Solar power was strong in the day, but tapered off as the sun set, and there was little wind. And though Alberta can import electricity from other provinces, initially this was unavailable because both Saskatchewan and B.C. were facing cold snaps and high demand of their own.
There have been no rotating outages in 11 years, said Leif Sollid, spokesperson for the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO). However, on Saturday, “we were at high risk of having to take that very last resort measure because we were close to exhausting all of our backup reserves.”
If the operator had been unable to keep the system in balance, with supply matching demand, Mr. Sollid said, AESO would have had to direct distribution facility owners across the province to impose simultaneous, 30-minute rotating outages.
That was averted because of the “phenomenal” response from Albertans. “Within seconds, we saw 100 megawatts of demand fall off the system. Within a few minutes, we had 200 megawatts fall off. So that was enough to get us over that that peak and avoid having to go to rotating outages – it made the difference,” he said in an interview Sunday.
Alberta’s energy market stands apart from the other provinces in that the private sector oversees new capacity, which is mainly driven by revenues.
The province has issued notices in the past for other weather-related events such as tornadoes, but this was the first time that an alert was issued asking people to reduce energy consumption, Mr. Sollid said.
“Within seconds, we could see in real time in our control room the demand just drop and it was phenomenal. A huge shout-out to Albertans for doing their part.”
On Thursday of last week, power demand in Alberta hit an all-time high, registering the single largest one-hour demand period in the province’s history. “We were able to manage that in large part because of the very strong wind,” Mr. Sollid said.
On Friday, however, with demand still high, a lack of wind and constrained imports prompted a grid alert – an alert that means the power system is under stress. A grid alert is posted on the AESO’s website and tweeted.
On Saturday, AESO projected that the Alberta grid would face a 100 to 200 megawatt shortfall of electricity during peak hours. “We were close to exhausting our backup reserves,” he said.
By Saturday evening, Alberta was able to import some electricity from Saskatchewan and B.C., Mr. Sollid said.
On Sunday, AESO issued another grid alert.It asked Albertans again to conserve electricity during the peak hours of 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Its suggestions included delaying the use of dryers and dishwashers, cooking with a microwave instead of stove, and using a laptop instead of desktop computer.
Temperatures are expected to moderate early this week – but extreme cold-weather conditions could well return, said Thomas Anderson, an Edmonton-based metererologist at Environment Canada.
“It’s still January. There’s always that chance that we could find ourselves with cold temperatures around this level again. We’re not out of the hard winter by any stretch,” said Mr. Anderson – who switched off all unneccessary lights in his own house after receiving Saturday’s alert.
On Friday, Ms. Smith took to the social-media platform X, formerly Twitter, to inform Albertans that AESO had issued a grid alert for the province.Ms. Smith also cast doubt on the dependability of renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar.
“Right now, wind is generating almost no power,” the Premier tweeted. “When renewables are unreliable as they are now, natural gas plants must increase capacity to keep Albertans warm and safe.”
University of Alberta law and economics professor Andrew Leach says the imbalance of supply and demand that led to the risk of rolling blackouts stemmed from a confluence of events, including the outage at a gas plant and scant power imports from other provinces.
Prof. Leach says those events were unexpected – but a lack of solar and wind generation was foreseeable.
“Nobody was expecting it to be sunny in Alberta at 7 p.m. on the 13th of January,” he says. “If you expect to be able to turn on the wind and the sun, you’re kidding yourself.”
Prof. Leach says his own drive through the streets of Edmonton showed that holiday decorations were still illuminated, and lights were on in the Alberta Legislature.
“There were very obvious signs that we hadn’t done everything we could,” he says.
Prof. Leach said that the argument in favour of adding renewables to the supply is that they are a cheap source of electricity that can reduce reliance on more expensive gas production and also cut emissions.
Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf said on Sunday the province is continuing to call on citizens and businesses to reduce consumption where they can.
The extreme weather illustrates why Alberta needs to ensure it has reliability built into the system, Mr. Neudorf says.
“We ask them to stay in their lane,” he says of the federal government.
The office of federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault did not respond to a request for comment.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Dollarama Inc.’s food aisles may have expanded far beyond sweet treats or piles of gum by the checkout counter in recent years, but its chief executive maintains his company is “not in the grocery business,” even if it’s keeping an eye on the sector.
“It’s just one small part of our store,” Neil Rossy told analysts on a Wednesday call, where he was questioned about the company’s food merchandise and rivals playing in the same space.
“We will keep an eye on all retailers — like all retailers keep an eye on us — to make sure that we’re competitive and we understand what’s out there.”
Over the last decade and as consumers have more recently sought deals, Dollarama’s food merchandise has expanded to include bread and pantry staples like cereal, rice and pasta sold at prices on par or below supermarkets.
However, the competition in the discount segment of the market Dollarama operates in intensified recently when the country’s biggest grocery chain began piloting a new ultra-discount store.
The No Name stores being tested by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. in Windsor, St. Catharines and Brockville, Ont., are billed as 20 per cent cheaper than discount retail competitors including No Frills. The grocery giant is able to offer such cost savings by relying on a smaller store footprint, fewer chilled products and a hearty range of No Name merchandise.
Though Rossy brushed off notions that his company is a supermarket challenger, grocers aren’t off his radar.
“All retailers in Canada are realistic about the fact that everyone is everyone’s competition on any given item or category,” he said.
Rossy declined to reveal how much of the chain’s sales would overlap with Loblaw or the food category, arguing the vast variety of items Dollarama sells is its strength rather than its grocery products alone.
“What makes Dollarama Dollarama is a very wide assortment of different departments that somewhat represent the old five-and-dime local convenience store,” he said.
The breadth of Dollarama’s offerings helped carry the company to a second-quarter profit of $285.9 million, up from $245.8 million in the same quarter last year as its sales rose 7.4 per cent.
The retailer said Wednesday the profit amounted to $1.02 per diluted share for the 13-week period ended July 28, up from 86 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
The period the quarter covers includes the start of summer, when Rossy said the weather was “terrible.”
“The weather got slightly better towards the end of the summer and our sales certainly increased, but not enough to make up for the season’s horrible start,” he said.
Sales totalled $1.56 billion for the quarter, up from $1.46 billion in the same quarter last year.
Comparable store sales, a key metric for retailers, increased 4.7 per cent, while the average transaction was down2.2 per cent and traffic was up seven per cent, RBC analyst Irene Nattel pointed out.
She told investors in a note that the numbers reflect “solid demand as cautious consumers focus on core consumables and everyday essentials.”
Analysts have attributed such behaviour to interest rates that have been slow to drop and high prices of key consumer goods, which are weighing on household budgets.
To cope, many Canadians have spent more time seeking deals, trading down to more affordable brands and forgoing small luxuries they would treat themselves to in better economic times.
“When people feel squeezed, they tend to shy away from discretionary, focus on the basics,” Rossy said. “When people are feeling good about their wallet, they tend to be more lax about the basics and more willing to spend on discretionary.”
The current economic situation has drawn in not just the average Canadian looking to save a buck or two, but also wealthier consumers.
“When the entire economy is feeling slightly squeezed, we get more consumers who might not have to or want to shop at a Dollarama generally or who enjoy shopping at a Dollarama but have the luxury of not having to worry about the price in some other store that they happen to be standing in that has those goods,” Rossy said.
“Well, when times are tougher, they’ll consider the extra five minutes to go to the store next door.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
TORONTO – The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered TD Bank Group to pay US$28 million for repeatedly sharing inaccurate, negative information about its customers to consumer reporting companies.
The agency says TD has to pay US$7.76 million in total to tens of thousands of victims of its illegal actions, along with a US$20 million civil penalty.
It says TD shared information that contained systemic errors about credit card and bank deposit accounts to consumer reporting companies, which can include credit reports as well as screening reports for tenants and employees and other background checks.
CFPB director Rohit Chopra says in a statement that TD threatened the consumer reports of customers with fraudulent information then “barely lifted a finger to fix it,” and that regulators will need to “focus major attention” on TD Bank to change its course.
TD says in a statement it self-identified these issues and proactively worked to improve its practices, and that it is committed to delivering on its responsibilities to its customers.
The bank also faces scrutiny in the U.S. over its anti-money laundering program where it expects to pay more than US$3 billion in monetary penalties to resolve.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
