Once Again Ontario Ratepayer Dollars, are Blowing in the Wind

September 26^th was another day where Ontario’s ratepayers and taxpayers were burdened with paying lots of our after-tax dollars to IWT (industrial wind turbines) owners for energy surplus to our demand!

The approximately 4,900 MW of IWT cranked out 64,726 MW (55% of their capacity) and received the contracted price of $135/MWh. Additionally, it appears IESO also had them curtail 6,100 MW (5.2% of capacity) for which they received $120/MWh.  In total the cash they will be paid is about $9,470,000 ($8,738,000 for grid accepted generation plus $732,000 for curtailed generation).

The annoying part of the foregoing costs to us Ontarians is, we didn’t need the IWT generation as so frequently happens during the Spring and Fall seasons when demand is low.  The peak demand yesterday occurred at Hour 17 (hour ending at 5 PM) which was 15,657 MW versus the 20,000 MW plus peak demands we frequently see during warm summer days. The latter is when those IWT often generate a miserly 5 to 10% of their capacity.

As it turned out IESO was busy yesterday selling our excess generation to our neighbours in Michigan, New York and Quebec who gobbled up 61,181 MW (94.5% of IWT generation) of the unneeded surplus. What normally happens when those IWT are generating those unneeded megawatts is the market price is always low. Yesterday was no exception as IESO sold off the foregoing for the average HOEP (hourly Ontario export price) market price of $13.36/MWh so it produced revenue of only $817,000 meaning it barely paid for the cost of just the curtailed generation!

Those “first-to-the-grid” rights the McGuinty/Wynne led Ontario Liberal Party gave to the IWT owners via the FIT (feed-in-tariff) contracts continues to harm us and impacts the costs of electricity in the province eating up family and business money during these inflationary times.

Just more “money for nothing” from us compliant ratepayers/taxpayers doing nothing to reduce emissions while picking our pockets!