As we turn our calendars to 2022, only three coal-fired power plants will remain in Alberta. With TransAlta’s Keephills 1 coal power plant shuttering Dec. 31, and Keephills 3 and Sundance 4 switching from burning coal to natural gas, the Genesee 1, 2, and 3 facilities at Wabamun are now the last of what was, only a few years ago, Alberta’s most-used source of electricity.
The end of coal power in Alberta is happening faster than many expected, and well ahead of regulations set first by Ottawa in 2012 and updated in Alberta in 2015. Only a decade after Alberta commissioned its last coal plant, the regulatory phase-out scheduled for 2030 is a moot point, with the remaining Genesee plants set to convert to natural gas by the end of 2023. Coal, once responsible for over 80% of Alberta’s electric generation, and roughly half only five years ago, will be gone.
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