Alberta falls in industrial power rankings

While Alberta's retail electricity market has held onto third place for several years in the annual baseline assessment of choice in Canada and the United States ABACCUS, the commercial and industrial market slipped from fifth to eighth in 2009 and fell two notches further this year.

The scorecard results are surprising since industry analysts have contended for years that the province's restructured wholesale electricity market was performing well compared to the retail market, which has suffered from lack of competition.

Robert Spragins, who works for Alberta's Market Surveillance Administrator, says small changes in the scoring have caused Alberta's commercial/ industrial market to plummet because six other jurisdictions scored almost equally in the survey's 28 dimensions of service.

"I am not sure I am seeing a material change," Spragins said. "It's really fractions of percentages."

He said the Market Surveillance Administrator, which operates as a government-appointed watchdog, plans no market adjustments as a result of the ABACCUS report.

Nat Treadway, the founding partner of Distributed Energy Financial Group, the organization that annually conducts the analysis of North American deregulated electricity markets, said Alberta dropped in the rankings because more weight was given this year to jurisdictions with larger numbers of consumers.

"I will apologize, but I thought we had to change the methodology and we knew there would be some issues like this," he said.

Alberta Energy spokesman Jay O'Neill said the report confirms Alberta's position as a leader in residential retail electricity markets.

"It's actually good news," he said. "Alberta is the highest-rated province in both residential and commercial/industrial."

Ron Cerniglia of Direct Energy Services, said Alberta's score still places it in the top tier of the 23 states and provinces rated in the survey.

Texas, which has 60 industrial electricity suppliers to Alberta's eight, led all jurisdictions, followed by Maryland with 58 and New York with 55.

On the retail side, Alberta, with five suppliers providing 15 products, trailed only Texas with 37 providers and 255 products, and New York, with 27 suppliers and 52 products.

Critics scoffed at the survey's retail ranking, saying deregulation has failed to bring either promised lower prices or more choice of products.

"I am not buying into their report that Alberta is a success," said Liberal MLA Hugh MacDonald.

Jim Wachowich of the Alberta Consumers Coalition said the cost of deregulation outweighs any benefits. "Albertans were getting wholesale prices and now we're being told we should go to a retail model."