Ted Morton

A provincial leadership hopeful says he will review a multi-billion dollar proposal for an energy transmission project that has been inching along with support from the Alberta government.

Ted Morton, candidate for the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party leadership, is  questioning plans to build two high-voltage lines connecting coal-fired power plants south of Edmonton to a substation near Langdon, in southeast Rocky View.

“A Ted Morton government will immediately revisit the transmission plans in Bill 50,” said the former minister of both Sustainable Resource Development and finance in a release.

“Specifically, I will order an independent and impartial needs assessment by a panel of qualified experts.”

Conservative leadership candidates Alison Redford and Gary Mar have also expressed support for a revision of the Electric Statutes Amendment Act that resulted from the approval of Bill 50.

But Keith Wilson, a lawyer who has been speaking against several laws approved by the provincial government on energy and regional planning, scoffed at what he says is a late flip-flop by Morton.

“Now Morton (and Mar too) thinks he should be premier because he has figured out that Bill 50 is a really bad law that will result in serious economic harm to our province — just like I have been saying,” he said.

Wilson said he began to be concerned by bills 19, 36 and 50 since 2009.

“I became very concerned about the legislation and believe it reflects bad policy,” he said. “Bill 50 will result in an unnecessary, unaffordable, massive overbuilding of our transmission system, tripling the cost of industrial power, driving Alberta businesses and jobs out of Alberta.”

In a May 17 release of his policy on power transmission expansion, Morton said the panel will also be asked to review a procurement process that led to the power line project.

“Since I was first elected MLA for Foothills-Rocky View in 2004, the Government of Alberta has been pursuing a policy of enhancing and increasing North-South transmission capacity between the Edmonton and Calgary regions,” Morton noted in his release.

Morton also noted an original, modest proposal to build one 500 kV AC line eventually ballooned to two 500 kV DC lines, with prices escalating to $6 billion as estimated by the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) and $16 billion in the estimation of industrial power users.

“Why are we not looking at opportunities for more gas-fired generation given the impact of the shale gas revolution on gas prices?” asked Morton.

Morton noted building more gas-fired power plants closer to urban markets would allow Albertans to benefit from low-priced gas surpluses, reducing a need for expensive long-distance transmission lines.

“While I have never doubted the need for additional transmission capacity, I have never been persuaded of the need for two new DC lines,” he noted.

“I am still not persuaded today and neither are the majority of my constituents in Foothills-Rocky View.”

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