The power business comprises 407 MW of total power generation capacity in Alberta. AltaGas owns 50 percent of the Sundance B PPAs, giving it the rights to power output and ancillary services from 353 MW of coal-fired base-load generation until December 31, 2020. PPAs were established in 1999 under Alberta’s program of power industry deregulation in order to separate ownership of the physical power generation assets from marketing of output.
AltaGas has 39 MW of gas-fired power peaking capacity in southern Alberta. In late 2010 the Company commissioned 15 MW gas-fired cogeneration facility at the Harmattan Complex. This 54 MW of gas-fired capacity provides fuel diversity to AltaGas’ Power business and partially backstops outages at Sundance. The cogeneration facility provides steam to the gas processing facility as well as base-load power to the Alberta electric grid. The peaking plants also provide revenue from the sale of energy and ancillary services due to their quick ramp-up capability.