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Question: How much is the province’s power plan going to cost Albertans?

Answer: A shocking amount.

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Sorry I can’t give you a precise answer, because no one inside the Alberta legislature can provide an overall price tag yet, despite a month-long flurry of announcements surrounding the electricity market.

But it will begin with a B, as in billion — several billion dollars, or more.

“The whole plan, there are all kinds of added costs coming to Alberta,” says electricity consultant Gary Reynolds, former head of the province’s Balancing Pool.

“The monster has a lot of different tentacles.”

Just for fun, let’s start to tally the bucks that will flow out faster than electrons during a summer heat wave.

On Tuesday, as Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley were meeting in Ottawa over pipeline approvals, the province brought forward legislation to backstop losses inside Alberta’s Balancing Pool.

The provincial agency has been burning through cash — about $70 million a month — this year, mainly because of the NDP government’s decision to hike its carbon levy on heavy greenhouse gas emitters.