Albertans can expect their electricity bills to soar in the new year, says MLA and Wildrose energy critic Joe Anglin.
Anglin, the MLA for Rimbey Rocky Mountain House and Sundre stands by his belief the transmission lines recently approved by the Alberta Utilities Commission are not needed.
“The lines have always been wrong for a number of reasons. They have never been needed and as new information becomes available we find new reasons as to why the lines are not needed.”
Anglin said the Tories won’t admit they are wrong about the lines, but documents they relied upon as fact regarding the issue have now been reputed by their authors.
He said PC MLAs refused to answer questions regarding the subject during the last sitting of the legislature.
“They will never admit they are wrong,” he said, “but really the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.”
Anglin said Albertans can expect to pay more for the decision to go ahead with the lines which connect the Genesee area west of Edmonton to the Langdon area east of Calgary.
“Your electricity bill will double as a result of this. Expect it to start to skyrocket in January.”
Construction for the new lines is projected to begin in January with site preparation. It is expected to take about two years with the line to be in service in the spring of 2015.
More than 60 per cent of the approved route is to parallel existing transmission lines.
In a press release, Scott Thon, AltaLink president and CEO, said the line is critical to ensuring the reliability and efficiency of the transmission system — avoiding system congestion and allowing the competitive power generation market to work to the benefit of all Albertans.
“In the last 20 years, Alberta has welcomed more than one million new residents and our demand for electricity has doubled,” he said. “Since January 2010, we’ve had more than 4,500 discussions with stakeholders through open houses, information centres, one-on-one consultations, phone calls and written correspondence.”