Eight Days Straight and Climbing with Meagre Wind Generation

Two prior articles highlighted IWT (industrial wind turbines) failure to generate power in Ontario when it was needed and focused on the final three days in June and the first three days of July 2023.

Today we will add another two days as they totally bombed out as hot summer weather hit, and peak demand reached their highest levels so far in the current year.

On July 4^th peak demand was reached at Hour 19 (hour ending at 7 PM) hitting 21,633 MW with those IWT only generating 334 MW or 1.5% of demand at that hour.  Meanwhile nuclear, hydro, net imports of 1,617 MW (Michigan,* New York and Quebec) and those natural gas plants kept the lights on (figuratively speaking) to ensure we had no blackouts. Ontario’s natural gas plants filled in the void created by the IWT unreliable nature generating 5,898 MW over that hour or 27.3% of the peak demand.  Over the whole day IWT generated only 5,081 MW or a tiny 4.3% of their rated capacity whereas natural gas plants generated 121,633 MW or 24 times more than the IWT generated.

*Reputedly home to three of the top 100 most polluting power plants in the US.   

July 5^th saw peak demand reached at Hour 19 with a new high for the year of 22,686 MW and IWT contributing only 401 MW or 1.7% of demand versus our natural gas plants generating 6,814 MW or 30.4% of peak demand. We also had net imports at that hour of 1,262 MW with 81% of it from Michigan and probably paid dearly for it as the HOEP (hourly Ontario energy price) was $151.64/MWh which seems very high when compared to how we frequently sell our surplus power to them for pennies of its cost. The latter is mostly caused by unneeded IWT generation during low demand days due to IWT first-to-the-grid rights guaranteed under their contracts.  Gas generation was seventeen (17) times more then what IWT produced at that hour and over the day generated 135,062 MW versus 11,442 MW (9.7% of their capacity) by IWT.

Over the last eight days IWT have generated a total of 86,668 MW which works out to 9.2% of their capacity.  While the IWT were falling flat our natural gas plants generated 803,174 MW which was 9.3 times what IWT produced.  Now, try to imagine how many blackouts we would have experienced without the latter or how much energy storage would be needed along with its additional costs!

IWT Fail

It is obvious IWT over the past eight days have failed to even come close to their annual average generation in Ontario.  A look at IESO’s “year in review” for 2022 indicates they reported 13.8 TWh (terawatt hours) of wind capacity generated 12 TWh of Output meaning they operated at an average capacity of 28% over 2022. What we have witnessed over the past eight (8) days is they generated 86,668 MW or only 9.2% of their rated capacity strongly suggesting they are great at generating power when it’s not needed.  Staying on topic, it is worth noting the IESO “year in review” states Ontario’s net exports in 2022 were 9.6 TWh or approximately 80% of IWT annual grid connected generation!

The latter is surely coincidental but please note sarcasm is fully intended!