Workers at the city landfill move piles of compostable material around. Utility managers say a $400,000 credit due is delayed because department heads could not yet forecast revenue earned under the province's new TIER program for charging heavy emitters.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
City utility managers are expecting no major changes to how they pay and receives credits under a redesigned provincial system for how heavy emitters are charged for CO2 production.
They will however, have to wait longer than expected to receive a $400,000 credit earned for composting program at the city landfill.
That was included in documents when the various departments presented updated budget plans for 2020 at the beginning of this month.
The delay was created because local department heads couldn’t include forecasts for the revenue earned in the Alberta government’s TIER program.
That was only finalized in late November by the United Conservative government, and stands now as the third iteration of pollution pricing paid by Alberta industry since the mid-2000s.
Now the city landfill, which receives credits, will reapply to the program that charges emitters and gives some credits to operations that offset carbon dioxide.
“It’s mostly a matter of timing,” said Rochelle Pancoast, general manager of the city’s utility business support office. “We’re confident about the approval.”
Since 2012 the city landfill has received blocks of carbon offset credits from its composting program and swapped them with the city’s power plant to offset its carbon emission
The city’s power generation entity did not present an updated business plan in early December when new power and gas distribution rates were introduced along with changes to water, sewer and trash collection fees.
Pancoast stated that power plant TIER exposure is not publicly disclosed due to commercially sensitive nature, but the power plant remains a net-payer into the system,
“It’s very similar to the Carbon Competitiveness Initiative (the previous program),” said Pancoast.
“For the power plant, (which pays into system), it’s essentially the same. We remain best-in-class for gas (power plant performance).”
Landfill credits are swapped within the city’s accounting to the electric generation department, which uses them to partially offset its payments.
The revenue, which is recovered through commodity prices, is returned as revenue to solid wast utility to help offset costs.
“It’s revenue neutral throughout the organization,” said environmental utilities general manager Lora Brennan.
The department applies to the program with multi-year blocks of credits to be more cost effective. The block in question involves compost operations from 2018-2019, and since rates over that time, the average credit value would be $24, said Brennan. The next block will require the program to reapply, have the program re-certified, and credit value established.
The UCP made a carbon tax on heavy industry the centre piece of its environmental plan, and promised during the spring election to rewrite rules brought in by the New Democrats in early 2018.
Those updated the Specified Gas Emitters Regulation, that was created in 2008.
The existence of such a system prevented double charging of the Alberta general carbon levy for power consumers, since manufacturers or electricity generators use coal or natural gas as either feedstock of fuel.
This month, Ottawa announced that the system would qualify as measure enough to price carbon on industry, but a levy on consumer use of things like gasoline, diesel, propane and natural gas. That charge of $30 per tonne, will be imposed by the federal government on Jan. 1, 2020. It should have a similar effect on fuel and home heating costs as the Alberta Levy, which was also set at $30 when it was cancelled in early May by the incoming UCP government.
Major composting operations receive carbon credits because while the process naturally releases CO2, it prevents organic material from being buried where it would produce methane. That gas, when released, is considered to be 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas.
According to the federal registry of facilities with major emissions, the city’s landfill produced 40,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2017, the most recent year studied.
The same year the city’s power plant complex emitted 380,000 tonnes. That figure does not include the city’s north-end Unit 16 generator, which was commissioned in 2018 and which had a brief grace period from carbon charges while a baseline was established.
