Honest question: Is it clear that wind really could not produce more electricity right now? Depending on the way producers are chosen and the net is "congested" the wind farms might just not be allowed to contribute.
The area west of Edmonton and Red Deer where itβs more like 5-6kt (still not particularly windy) is in the Rocky Mountains and would be pretty challenging to build wind turbines in.
>> the wind farms might just not be allowed to contribute.
Alberta uses a bid system where everyone who bids under the price that (based on demand) ends up getting set, gets to participate and get paid. Because renewable is tough to store, they almost always bid zero to make sure it gets included. The same thing happens for the renewable portion of integrated providers; they bid low on the renewable to make sure they're included, and high on the variable fossil fuels (i.e. gas can be turned off or brought on line) to drive up the price. It's a complicated system with lots of opportunities for manipulation, but renewable tends to be prioritized for participation because it's hard to store for later.
In the EU the merit order principle is used ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_order ). So, sometimes that might mean a large energy company finds that their wind farm suddenly needs a break for maintenance work, so a much more expensive source can raise the price for everyone. ;)
