Ontario electricity customers paid millions for wind in November

January 14, 2017

The line of poetry “it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good” was a reality in November for Ontario ratepayers. The IESO (Independent Electricity System Operator) finally released their November 2016 Monthly Market Report on Friday, January 13, 2017 and there was not much good news in it.

While net exports* were down compared to the same month in 2015, it wasn’t related to the amount of wind power generated and curtailed (estimates of the latter from Scott Luft); that exceeded November 2015 by about 152,000 megawatts (MWh) and clocked in at 1,363,000 MWh.  Generated and curtailed power exceeded Ontario’s net exports in 2015, representing 102.7% versus 72.9% the previous year.  One should suspect November 2016 also saw spilled hydro and steamed off nuclear, but at 102.7% of our net exports, it is obvious that power generation from wind was clearly not needed.

November 2016 was not the month with the highest combination of generated and curtailed wind, but rather the second highest. The highest, according to Scott’s estimates, was December 2016, but we will save that report for another day.

Exported power could have served half of Ontario

Net exports in November 2016 were equivalent to the power that approximately 150,000 “average”** Ontario households would use in a year, or to put it another way, was sufficient to supply 2.4 million of those same households for the whole month of November. That is slightly more than 50% of all Ontario households.

The net exports of 1,326,960 MWh in November 2016 cost Ontario ratepayers $169 million to generate and sold at an average price of $16.69 per/MWh, resulting in income of  $21.4 million.  What that means is, Ontario’s electricity ratepayers subsidized the sale, picking up the difference of $l47.4 million, along with another $30.8 million for the 254,000 MWh of curtailed wind.  Past and present Energy Ministers in the Wynne-led government would probably claim the deeply discounted sale price for those exported MWh was actually a “profit” but most ratepayers recognize that claim to be untrue.

Cancel the contracts

Current Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault has a chance to make his mark by halting all planned acquisition of wind power generation in LRP I and LRP II, as well as cancelling any wind power projects that have not commenced construction, or which have passed their critical “operational” dates.

Time to treat industrial-scale wind power development as that “ill wind”!

© Parker Gallant

*Net Exports are total exports less total imports.

**The Ontario Energy Board claims the “average” Ontario household consumes 9 MWh annually, or 9,000 kilowatts.