AltaLink construction underway in Langdon

Times Reporter  

 

On Aug. 22 AltaLink hosted a BBQ at the Langdon substation for anyone interested to come and enjoy. The BBQ was also an information session about where things are now with the new transmission line development. 

It has been a few years since the company first began public consultations about proposed routes. After determining a preferred route, AltaLink filed their application with the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) in March of 2011.  

AltaLink then began the regulatory process. In late 2011 the Minister of Energy at the time, Ted Morton, wrote a letter to have the process stopped so the need for the new transmission lines could be assessed. 

“So the government put together a committee called the critical transmission review committee that did some work to ensure that the transmission lines, primarily between the Edmonton and Calgary areas, were still needed,” said Scott Schreiner director of external engagement for AltaLink. 

“It was an independent committee and everybody that had an interest in the transmission business, both on an industry side (and) on a customer side was able to make presentations to this committee.”

AltaLink went through a public hearing that took place in Red Deer, and approval was given in Dec. 2012 for the line going from Genesee, west of Edmonton, to Langdon. 

Construction has begun with the building of a new convertor station in Langdon that will be the southern point of the new Western Alberta Transmission Line.  Schreiner said construction crews are starting to assemble and erect transmission structures, the towers, mainly on the north end of the line for now and are working their way south.  

‘There’s going to be a lot of benefits to it (when it’s finished), the system will be more reliable at the north end, a lot more reliable at the south end and it’s going to reduce, significantly reduce, the amount of wasted electricity in between the Edmonton and Calgary areas that gets lost in transfer and that’s going to save people money,” said Schreiner. 

The combined losses with the reduced requirement for high cost generation makes savings in the hundreds of millions of dollars range over the lifetime of the project. 

“At this point there’s so much demand on the system, there’s so much load that there isn’t the opportunity to be able to pull lines out of service. One of the advantages that this line will provide is it will allow us to use the existing 240KV lines as a support system for central Alberta, so it helps reinforce Red Deer and surrounding areas there.”

In the last 30 years since any reinforcement has happened between Edmonton and Calgary more than a million people have come to the province, which has more than doubled the demand for electricity which has been operating on the same set of wires. 

In Alberta the system adds about two cities the size of Red Deer every year electrically. That kind of demand is coming on every year so the need is there to meet that demand and to be able to continue to meet the electricity demands well into the future. 

Because AltaLink will be using a Direct Current line, as the demand for power increases they can add to it without having to build a new line or tower. They would have to add more equipment to the substations but won’t have to bother landowners again or expand in the fields, which will also lead to a lower carbon footprint in the future.