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Alberta will hold its first auction for renewable power contracts early next year as the NDP government moves on its strategy of having 30 per cent of the province’s electrical supply coming from sources such as wind, solar and hydro by 2030.

The government tabled legislation Thursday enshrining the target in law but Environment Minister Shannon Phillips laid out details of the province’s plan in a morning speech at the Canadian Wind Energy Association’s annual conference in Calgary.

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The province will hold its first competition in early 2017, which will see investors bidding to provide up to 400 megawatts of renewable electricity for 20 years, with the winning bidders likely to be announced about a year from now and projects up-and-running by 2019.

The government intends to use money collected from the existing carbon levy on large industrial emitters to fund an indexed “renewable energy credit” mechanism that will pay the difference between the bidders’ price and the pool price for electricity as a “top-up.”