Modelled aspects of the Alberta electricity system - Peaking capacity, supply adequacy and simple cycle gas plant operations

Some of these assets are not run as peaking facilities as their operation is dependant on factors outside the bulk electricity system.4 Figure 1 shows the range of dispatch hours for each individual simple cycle plant that operates as a peaker, where each dispatch is classified by the amount of time the plant is operating continuously until it is sent the signal to shut off. [...] Together, these figures show that the majority of Alberta’s peaking fleet is dispatched for five to 15 hours each time it is 4 For example, the primary function of the Rainbow #5 simple cycle plant is to provide electricity to the Rainbow Lake natural gas processing plant with which it is co-located. [...] For example, augmenting each simple cycle plant with a 4-hour battery of the same installed capacity — 803 MW in total — could displace nearly half of the generation and operating hours of the original fleet. [...] Because the deployment of high levels of wind and storage with much lower marginal operating costs will limit the use of expensive gas peakers as a function of the market, this inadequate revenue would arise under the current market design regardless of the CER’s unabated peaker exemption limit. [...] As such, this analysis indicates that any criticism that the 450-hour unabated peaker exemption limit is insufficient to allow peakers to recover fixed operating costs and remain available is misguided on two accounts: 1) It faults the exemption limit as the cause of the inadequate revenue, even though the changing supply mix will also result in the same effective outcome.