How a 'turn it off' approach to energy conservation could benefit Canada, and the planet

The challenge for climate change communicators a couple of decades ago was conveying what the research was showing: that the burning of fossil fuels was altering the planet's climate. That communication played a vital role in facilitating the current widespread understanding that the climate is changing and it is a crisis.

There remains, however, a fundamental communication challenge in moving the focus from consuming different kinds of energy to facilitating a revolution of consuming less. Recent electrical grid events in Alberta offer a compelling case study.

On Jan. 13, 2024, extreme cold hit Alberta—the coldest in half a century. As people turned up their thermostats to stay warm, Alberta's power grid was put under immense strain. To avoid taking pressure off the electrical grid with rolling blackouts (rotating half an hour power outages throughout Alberta), the Alberta Emergency Management Agency sent an alert to all Albertans.

This unprecedented use of the emergency system, the first of what would be four alerts, asked Albertans to turn off unnecessary electricity—lights, electrical appliances and devices—and use "essentials only."

Albertans responded. Within minutes of the initial emergency alert being issued, demand on Alberta's power grid decreased by 150 megawatts and continued to fall. Alberta produces around 16,330 megawatts of electricity annually.

Because many people and some businesses voluntarily switched off appliances and other electrical devices that were not needed, there was no need for the rolling blackouts.

Switching off

The brief experience of turning off highlighted a couple of things. First, that people are willing to change behaviors when asked. Second, the behavior change, for some, was positive. As one Albertan posted on Reddit

"Our kids made a game out of it. Showered with a candle in the bathroom, we had one small light to read books, ALL the lights off in and outside the house, no TV obviously."

Another poster on the same Reddit thread offered that their 10-year-old excitedly asked that all the lights and TV be turned off and added, "It looks like the alert does work."

In the aftermath, the news has focused on critiques of Alberta's current energy generation and how to facilitate growing energy output in the future as fossil-fuels continue to be phased out. Politicians and experts wondered how the grid could be more robust and fail-safe so that there is no need to ask people to turn things off.

Critiques of solar and wind were also quickly offered as were the benefits of new power generation such as Alberta's Cascade Power Project—a 900 megawatt natural gas-fired plant—and increased energy generation flexibility.

But what if the opportunity in Alberta's power grid struggles is not about producing different kinds of energy but consuming less?