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“Some are doing that now and claiming it’s because of our climate leadership plan. The reality is that coal is not very profitable right now.”

On March 7, TransCanada Corp. and AltaGas Ltd. handed their contracts to purchase coal-fired electricity over to a provincial agency called the Balancing Pool, citing a change in the law as their legal reason for exiting the contracts.

“The rules are clear and were established back when these PPAs were first auctioned off and bought by TransCanada, over a decade ago,” TransCanada spokesman Mark Cooper said in an email.

Electricity prices have fallen sharply in Alberta and natural gas prices have fallen to levels where analysts say it is now cheaper to generate electricity from gas, especially when the government taxes carbon emissions.

Calgary’s city-owned utility company Enmax Corp. also handed its power purchase agreement (PPA) for coal power over to the Balancing Pool in December. The Balancing Pool subsequently sent Enmax a letter confirming the transfer of the agreement.

“Our decision to terminate the Battle River Power Purchase Arrangement was not taken lightly. It was based on a combination of lower forward market prices and the June 2015 increases in the carbon emissions costs under the Specified Gas Emitters Regulation,” wrote Enmax spokeswoman Doris Kaufmann Woodcock in an email. “After undertaking a review of the matter, as is required by the Balancing Pool Regulation, the Balancing Pool confirmed to us in late January that we were entitled to terminate the Battle River Power Purchase Arrangement in accordance with the terms of the PPA.”