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Alberta’s foray into deregulated power began in April 1998, when Ralph Klein’s Progressive Conservative government passed the Utilities Amendment Act.

The act paved the way for an open electricity market on Jan. 1, 2001, where power companies would compete for customers and government would step away from setting prices. Competition, and the introduction of contracts, was supposed to keep the prices low. The government had a 20-year-plan to bring more competition into the market, and said it would provide consumer rebates until 2020.

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The reality wasn’t that straightforward, and consumers were in for a wild ride.

Demand surge prompts blackouts

Before deregulation took effect, power generators were barely keeping up with the demands of a growing province. They were making about one per cent more power than Albertans were guzzling, when industry experts said a safer margin would have been a 20-per-cent surplus. On June 12,1998, when two major Edmonton generators were down for maintenance, utilities were forced to cut power to thousands of people in Edmonton and Calgary to prevent a provincewide blackout. In October, 15,000 Calgary homes lost electricity, and companies told Edmonton industries to cut consumption when turbines broke down. It led to allegations and an investigation that companies purposefully withheld power to inflate the price during high demand.