Another Day and over $15 million was Tossed Away

Once again Ontario ratepayers and taxpayers were forced to throw $15 million plus into the garbage.

Yesterday, April 21, 2020, our electricity system operator, IESO, managed the grid in a way that treats ratepayers and taxpayers as bottomless pits. The wind was blowing strong throughout the province and if all their generation was accepted into the grid it would have generated more power than hydro did.

IESO accepted 48,100 MWh of wind generation and curtailed 47,200 MWh.  At the same time, they gave away 70,000 MWh to our neighbours! Yes “gave away” is correct as yesterday’s market price or HOEP was -0.05 ($/MWh) according to IESO’s Daily Market Summary.

The 48,100 MWh of wind cost us $6.5 million and curtailed wind another $5.7 million so the total cost of wind generation for the day was $12.2 million or $254/MWh (25.4 cents/kWh) for the grid accepted portion.  Almost all of the 70,000 MWh was given away to New York and Michigan so effectively we are helping them financially cope with the costs of the Covid-19 pandemic by providing them with FREE energy. The 70,000 MWh we gave away was about what 2.8 million average Ontario households (over 50% of all households in the province) would consume in one day.

If we calculate the MWh we gave away in excess of the grid accepted wind (70,000 MWh – 48,100 MWh = 21,900 MWh) at IESO’s first estimate of the Global Adjustment* (GA) of $137.07 we can add another $2.9 million to the monies we were forced to toss away yesterday. That makes the total hit to Ontario’s residential and small and medium sized businesses over $15.2 million above what electricity should have cost us for the day.

If we did this every day of the year the cost to Ontario’s taxpayers and ratepayers would be over $5 billion annually.

Time for Ontario’s current government to put an end to this and pass legislation to stop this craziness!

*April’s GA is likely to be north of $160/MWh according to my friend Scott Luft.