Yesterday brought Ontario an early spring day with temperatures reaching the low teens in much of the province. The day was coupled with sunshine and lots of wind which cranked up those IWT (industrial wind turbines) spread throughout Ontario’s rural landscape. The unfortunate part of that latter generation is the fact it wasn’t needed! When Ontario has those warmer spring and fall days electricity demand is often at levels where nuclear and hydro can easily supply all the electricity we need.
As it turned out wind generation IESO accepted yesterday reached 68,900 MWh and about 18,500 MWh were curtailed because nobody needed it. Despite the foregoing IESO were busy doing what they could to give it away or sell it off to our neighbours in NY, Michigan and Quebec. Because it wasn’t needed the average HOEP (hourly Ontario energy price) averaged a piddly $13.48/MWh for the full day and for the first 16 hours we gave it away earning 0.00 for every MWh IESO sold/gave away to those neighbours.
If one totes up the cost of the IWT generation accepted ($135/MWh) into our grid and what was curtailed ($120/MWh) you are looking at a cost over those 24 hours of approximately $11,522,000. Over those same 24 hours we exported 54,800 MWh at the aforementioned $13.38/MWh meaning we generated revenue of $739,000. If we deduct the latter from the total (grid accepted and curtailed) of what those IWT cost us it means the net cost becomes $10,783,000 assuming IWT supplied all of the exported power.
If we go one step further and conclude of the 68,900 MWh generated by those IWT, 54,800 MWh were exported we are looking at a cost of $764.75/MWh or 76.5 cents/kWh for what was consumed (14,100 MWh) by Ontario’s ratepayers. The conclusion is; the only thing “green” about IWT generation is the amount of money it extracts from the pockets of Ontario’s ratepayers and taxpayers.
Parker Gallant Energy Perspectives 
How many schools (or a hospital) could built with $10,000,000 ?
No answer expected from the government even with an election in the wind.
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Mind repeating that Parker? Let me see if I got that. When grid demand is light due to mild temperature but when at the same time wind is blowing at optimum energy creation speed which with subsidy is costing $137 a unit (of some type) the energy cant be used and to obtain revenue winds up being sold at a loss or is just dumped. So ratepayers who in halcyon days of yore would have been billed modestly for that day instead must bear the burden of the loss resulting from the off grid dispersal.
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