ATCO considers legal action as it blames province for renewable project losses

By ZOE MASON on March 17, 2026.

One of Alberta’s biggest companies is blaming the Alberta government’s energy market redesign for substantial losses in the value of its renewable generation projects.

ATCO Ltd.’s subsidiary corporation Canadian Utilities Ltd. reported losses in the value of its renewable energy assets, totalling $408 million in recent financial documents.

ATCO’s renewable energy portfolio in Alberta represents an investment of about $1 billion.

Changes made during the energy market redesign move the province away from its historic “zero-congestion” policy. Under the new framework, congestion in certain areas is tolerated, and generators will be required to construct their own transmission infrastructure to get power to the grid.

ATCO EnPower COO Mark Brown says the Alberta government’s move away from the zero congestion policy last year left facilities like the ATCO Forty Mile wind farm exposed to “severe and frequent curtailment.”

“Our Forty Mile facility was built and financed on the assurance that we could deliver electricity to the grid without being transmission-constrained,” said Brown in a statement to the News. “With that framework removed, and no immediate fix in place, we are left facing persistent curtailment with no clear timeline for when access to the grid will be restored – limiting our ability to deliver low-cost electricity to Albertans.”

ATCO’s wind facility in Forty Mile was the most curtailed renewable facility in the province during the second quarter of 2025, and the second-most curtailed in the first and third quarters.

ATCO is not ruling out legal action.

“ATCO EnPower is exploring all remedies associated with this situation through engagement and, where necessary, legal recourse to secure timely resolution regarding a market design that is demonstrably fair, efficient and openly competitive,” reads the February report.

But Brown says it is ATCO’s “strong preference” to continue to work with the provincial government and AESO to create “a fair and durable framework that serves customers, investors and generators.”

In a statement to the News, the office of Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf said the reforms were designed to protect ratepayers from rising fees.

“Our move to cost causation ensures that when generators are the sole beneficiaries of a project, they – not Albertans – shoulder the infrastructure costs, rather than passing those expenses to Albertans through ever-rising transmission fees,” reads the statement.

“Alberta’s government will not apologize for putting Albertans – and the affordability and reliability of the power they depend on – first.”

In windy and sunny southeast Alberta, where much of the investment in renewables is concentrated, a dearth of transmission infrastructure means projects in the region are likely to face curtailment that will only grow worse under the new policy.

In 2023, long before the zero-congestion policy was scrapped, a long-term transmission plan from AESO estimated that more than $3 billion in line upgrades were required to accommodate the growth in production.

A report from the province’s Market Surveillance Administrator showed that nearly all of the wind farms reporting the most losses due to grid constraints were located in southeast Alberta.

ATCO’s Forty Mile facility lost 25 per cent of its total potential power generation.

Other wind farms in the area, such as Capstone Infrastructure’s Wild Rose facility and ACCIONA Energia’s Forty Mile Bow Island wind farm, reported even higher losses.

Amid the onslaught of changes to the regulatory environment for renewable energy, a recent report from the Pembina Institute found that new solar, wind and storage projects have declined 93 per cent since 2022.

In the company report, Canadian Utilities says the policy is detrimental to the Government of Alberta’s stated objectives to promote investment in the Province of Alberta.

Neudorf’s office called the report misleading, cited 16 new renewable power generation projects and four storage projects approved in 2025. The number is down from 24 new renewable projects in 2024.

The minister’s office says the province has a surplus of electricity supply, and industry is responding to market demand.

Between 2023 and 2025, another Pembina Institute report found 44 per cent of renewable projects approved were cancelled. The cancelled projects could have yielded enough power to meet the province’s average total power demand.

Only 11 per cent of gas capacity proposed in the same timeframe were cancelled.

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