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But one of the companies at the centre of the case — Capital Power — said the government is being “misleading” in its monetary claims.

The company points to public information from the Balancing Pool that shows it could reduce its liability to $950 million by cancelling the contracts, or $635 million by cancelling some and managing others.

Gary Reynolds, the former president of the Balancing Pool who is now a consultant, said he was certain that under normal circumstances some of the PPAs would be cancelled, reducing the province’s overall exposure.

Instead, the government is making a high-stakes gamble, he said.

“While this is being tied up in court, it’s going to prevent the Balancing Pool from deciding whether or not it’s better to hold the PPAs or terminate them,” Reynolds said in an interview this week.

“If this goes against the government of Alberta, then all the losses that are incurred on the PPAs while this is tied up in the courts will be eaten by consumers. The Balancing Pool otherwise may have decided it was better and pay out the net book value and that would have been a much better economic decision.”

PPAs are contracts set up during the deregulation of Alberta’s electrical system that sees buyers purchase power from generating companies and then resell into the open market.

Since December, Enmax, TransCanada, ASTC Power Partnership (an association between TransCanada and AltaGas) and Capital Power have announced their intention to terminate all of their PPAs for coal-fired electricity, transferring the money-losing contracts back to the Balancing Pool.