Why Western Canada is Ditching Diesel for Turbines (And Why Diesel Is Not Dead Yet)

If you have driven past a completion pad near Red Deer or Drayton Valley recently, you might have noticed something missing. The familiar roar of a dozen diesel generators struggling against the cold is gone. In its place is a faint whine and a plume of steam.

A quiet technical revolution is occurring across the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Operators are aggressively replacing decentralized fleets of rental diesel generators with centralized natural gas turbines. While environmental, social, and governance targets are often cited in press releases, the real drivers on the ground are practical. These include operational compliance, cold weather reliability, and fuel economics.

However, despite the hype, the diesel engine is far from extinct. In fact, for specific applications, it remains the undefeated champion. Here is the reality of the shift.

The Case for Turbines: Noise and Cold

The most immediate catalyst for completion pad electrification is noise pollution. As drilling activity moves closer to populated areas like Rocky Mountain House and Grande Prairie, managing community relations has become a critical operational constraint.

In Alberta, the Alberta Energy Regulator enforces AER Directive 038. This regulation sets strict permissible sound levels for energy facilities. Traditional reciprocating diesel engines generate noise through violent explosions inside piston cylinders. This creates a low-frequency thump that travels for kilometers. Mitigating this often requires building massive, expensive sound walls around the lease.

Turbines offer a distinct advantage. They compress and ignite fuel in a continuous process which results in a high-frequency sound profile that dissipates much faster over distance. Field tests have shown that centralized turbine microgrids can often eliminate the need for sound walls entirely.

Furthermore, anyone who has worked a winter in the patch knows the headache of cold-starting a diesel engine at -40°C. Diesel fuel gels and batteries die. Natural gas turbines, derived from jet engines, thrive in cold, dense air. By running continuously on field gas, they eliminate the daily battle of boosting and thawing frozen equipment.

The Reality Check: Why Diesel Is Not Dead

If turbines are so great, why do we still see diesel generators on almost every site? The answer comes down to physics and finance.

The first factor is the Kick, or Transient Response. Turbines are like marathon runners because they are efficient and steady, but they are slow to accelerate. Diesel engines are sprinters. When a massive fracturing pump kicks on, it demands a sudden and massive spike of amperage. A diesel engine can accept this heavy load almost instantly. A turbine, however, can bog down or stall if the load step is too aggressive. For highly variable loads, diesel still offers the best transient response on the market.

The second factor is Portability and Speed. Setting up a turbine microgrid takes time and infrastructure. You need gas lines, scrubbing equipment to clean the gas, and high-voltage distribution panels. For a short three-day service job or an emergency repair, this makes no sense. A diesel generator is self-contained. You drop it off, fill the tank, and turn the key. For temporary and mobile industrial power generation, diesel is still the king of logistics.

The third factor is Capital Expenditure versus Operating Expenditure. Turbines are expensive to buy but cheap to run because they burn free field gas. Diesel generators are cheap to buy or rent but expensive to run because you must truck in fuel. For smaller operators with limited capital, the upfront cost of a turbine package might be hard to swallow even if it saves money in the long run.

The T&T View: The Hybrid Future

So who wins? The answer is usually both.

We are increasingly seeing hybrid microgrids where a natural gas turbine provides the baseload power to handle the steady lights, camps, and auxiliary systems. Meanwhile, a bank of diesel generators sits on standby. When the heavy pumps kick on, the diesels fire up to handle the massive load spikes, then shut down once the heavy lifting is done.

This approach gives operators the best of both worlds. They get the cheap, quiet, and clean power of gas for 90% of the day, and the brute force of diesel when it matters.

Key Takeaway

The era of the screaming diesel generator as the primary power source is ending, but diesel is not disappearing. The industry is moving toward completion pad electrification that uses turbines for the base and diesel for the peak.

Navigating this mix of technologies requires more than just renting a generator. It requires engineering. At T&T Power Group, we specialize in the high-voltage distribution and control systems that make these hybrid grids work. Whether you are looking to silence a noisy site or stop burning cash on diesel, we can help you build the right power stack.

References

Alberta Energy Regulator. (2024, April). Directive 038: Noise control. https://www.aer.ca

CIMAC. (n.d.). Transient response behaviour of gas and diesel engines [Technical paper]. International Council on Combustion Engines.

EnergyNow. (n.d.). Completion pad electrification and the hybrid grid. https://energynow.ca

Pembina Institute. (2025, December). Power struggle: Electrification trends in BC and Alberta. https://www.pembina.org