Alberta Joins Solar/Wind Bust (uneconomic energy hits political risk)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 26, 2026

“Why not state your real concern in plain English. ‘The profitability of my company and others in the renewable energy business is being negatively impacted by the refusal of the citizens of Alberta (aka ‘the government’) to financially subsidize transmission.”

David Vonesch of the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, posted on social media:

A $408M write-down of ATCO’s wind and solar projects and development pipeline! Alarm bells are ringing loudly now but is anyone listening?

While the solar and wind industry has seen our concerns largely fall on deaf ears within government and at the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), this should be a major wake up call for ALL Albertans that want to see investment of ANY kind in this province. Material, punitive and retroactive – Alberta is writing the book on how to kill investment: “provincially legislated changes … have materially and retroactively altered the economic conditions under which these renewable assets were developed and financed,” the ATCO company said.

The back story is provided by Jason Markusoff, “ATCO Blames Alberta Power Policies as it Devalues Wind and Solar Projects by $408M.” (CBC News: March 14, 2026)

• On Oct. 5, 2022, ATCO announced a $730-million acquisition of renewable projects in Ontario and Alberta, including the 202-megawatt Forty Mile wind farm in southeast Alberta. It was a major foray by a massive Alberta conglomerate into the province’s then-burgeoning wind and solar power market….
• [Now] One of Alberta’s biggest and most venerable companies is declaring a $408-million hit to the value of its wind and solar projects in the province…. ATCO Ltd.’s power subsidiary Canadian Utilities reported the devaluation of its roughly $1 billion in Alberta renewable energy assets in a recent financial disclosure.
• It says that policy changes to the transmission network have forced the company to heavily curtail the output of its major wind turbine project in southeast Alberta — and adds that a looming overhaul of transmission rules stands to harm that and other renewable projects even more.
• The [Danielle] Smith government [United Conservative Party] has prided itself on creating an investor-friendly climate in Alberta, and slashing regulation that it derides as “red tape.” But it has faced repeated criticism from the renewable sector for doing the opposite…. Premier Danielle Smith and her government have criticized them as intermittent and less reliable than other generation types like natural gas.
• Canadian Utilities’ report signals that the province’s electricity policies are not only impairing the renewable sector’s potential growth, but also projects already built in Alberta…. Earlier this week, Pembina issued a report on the beleaguered state of Alberta’s wind and solar sector. It noted a 93 per cent drop in newly installed wind, solar and storage capacity between 2022 and 2025.
• A skeptic when it comes to the merits of renewable power, her government has imposed a range of new limits to renewable project development, including a seven-month moratorium on new approvals in 2023. Reforms to the broader electrical system, made in the name of reliability have been widely criticized by companies and groups involved in wind and solar.
• The lack of new power transmission lines from the wind- and solar-heavy southeast part of Alberta has forced the system regulators to curtail some companies’ generation. The ATCO company’s Forty Mile project has been one of the hardest hit. Twenty-five per cent of its total potential power generation was curtailed last year, according to a report by the provincial Market Surveillance Administrator.
• All told, provincially legislated changes “have materially and retroactively altered the economic conditions under which these renewable assets were developed and financed,” the ATCO company said in the document.

Reactions to Post

Comments to post were largely negative. “Political risk for politically correct, economically incorrect energy should be a reason to avoid the technology in the first place,” I posted.

A more forceful comment came from Peter Paauw:

Wind and solar power deserve to be killed off; they are leeches on the electricity system. They are completely unreliable: no wind means no electricity, and no sun (which is guaranteed every single night) means no electricity either. When you add the constant need for backup generation plus the massive overinvestment required in the transmission network, solar and wind become utterly useless to society.
The sooner we rip off the Band-Aid and focus on proper, reliable electricity, nuclear if you want to go carbon-free, the sooner we stop the exploding electricity bills.

Another comment was directed at Vonesch:

Why not state your real concern in plain English. “The profitability of my company and others in the renewable energy business is being negatively impacted by the refusal of the citizens of Alberta (aka “the government”) to financially subsidize transmission.”