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ARTICLE · 17 OCTOBER 2016

The Structure Of The Alberta Electricity Market

Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
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Alberta's Electricity Market is unique in Canada. Its uniqueness is best understood through the historical context from which it developed.

CanadaEnergy and Natural Resources
Kent Howie
Kent Howie
Alan Ross
Alan Ross
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History and Evolution

Alberta's Electricity Market is unique in Canada. Its uniqueness is best understood through the historical context from which it developed.

Unlike most other provinces in Canada, Alberta did not form one province-wide vertically integrated utility to generate, transmit and deliver electricity when the Province was initially electrified. Instead, the majority of Alberta's electricity infrastructure was developed and owned by either investor-owned or municipally-owned entities.

These entities have now either been taken over or evolved into some of the players that currently operate in the Alberta Electricity Market. For example, in Southern Alberta the Calgary Power Co. Ltd. generated 99% of Alberta's power at one time. It subsequently changed its name to TransAlta, a large generator in today's Alberta Electricity Market. In the City of Calgary, the distribution of power was done by Calgary's municipal power authority that later became

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