Energy Minister Thibeault manipulates public health data

The reason given by the McGuinty and Wynne governments for their ambitious (and now seen as economically disastrous) green energy program, instituted without any cost-benefit analysis, is the need for clean air in Ontario.

Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault was interviewed in his home riding recently, and had this to say in defence of the program, and to boost his party’s record to voters: “There’s lots of positives that are happening that we need to start talking about. Even, for example, when I talk about energy, we don’t [talk] about the fact we haven’t had a smog day in three years. Our air pollution hospitalizations are down by 41 per cent, deaths are down 23 per cent.“

“Deaths down 23 per cent”?

That statement seemed dramatic to me and a few others who regularly analyze and comment on energy in Ontario. So, I queried the Minister in an e-mail about his source of the information.

What I received back was a link to a charity called “Toronto Foundation” and a 265-page report they called “Toronto’s Vital^(R.) Report” which contained this statement:

“Premature deaths and hospitalizations as a result of air pollution have dropped by 23% and 41% respectively since 2004.[16]”

The figures Minister Thibeault used during his interview were apparently taken from that line in the report and the referenced link “[16]” to the actual source of the information which was a Toronto Public Health (TPH) report of April 2014.

What it actually said had nothing to do with the Energy Minister’s spin.

Here is that section from the TPH report:

Findings

Based on the most current information available, TPH estimates that air pollution in Toronto from all sources currently gives rise to 1,300 premature deaths and 3,550 hospitalizations annually (see Table 1). These estimates include the impact of pollution originating in other parts of Ontario and the United States and represent a decrease of 23% in premature deaths and 41% in hospitalizations as compared with 2004 estimates. Air pollution in Toronto comes mainly from traffic, industrial sources, residential and commercial sources, and off-road mobile sources such as rail, air, and marine sources. Of these sources, traffic has the greatest impact on health, contributing to about 280 premature deaths and 1,090 hospitalizations each year, or about 20% of all premature deaths and 30% of all hospitalizations due to air pollution.

The report contained no reference to the coal plants or their closing as Minister Thibeault’s “energy” inference suggests as the source of either causing premature deaths or hospitalizations!

As Guelph University economics professor Ross McKitrick recently reported, “Turns out Ontario’s painful coal phase-out didn’t help pollution—and Queens Park even knew it wouldn’t”.

It is a very serious matter when the government of the day manipulates public health data to suit its public relations agenda.

Advertisements

Premier Wynne’s Easter basket full of rotten eggs

Count the eggs! $50 million plus, lost in just 3 days!

The nice weather on Easter weekend in Ontario disguised the fact that April 14^th, 15^th and 16^th were really bad days for electricity customers.

Scott Luft’s daily reports detailed the bad news, even before the Independent Electricity System Operator or IESO got out their daily summary for April 12^th.   Some of the information in Scott’s reports are estimates, but they have always proven to be on the conservative side. These three reports paint a disturbing picture of what’s going on, and how badly the Ontario government is mismanaging the electricity file.

Here are a few of the events that our Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault and Premier Wynne should find embarrassing. They also confirm what many of us have been telling them for several years.

First, Thursday April 13^th saw a disclosure from the Energy Ministry that Ontario paid out $28,095,332 including about $240,000 in interest to Windstream Energy to satisfy the award made to them under the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) tribunal, due to cancellation of  a 300-MW offshore industrial wind turbine project.

Second, the HOEP (hourly Ontario electricity price) market, traded all of Ontario’s generation over the three days at “0” (zero) or negative value. While total demand for electricity was 1,031,448 MWh over the three days the HOEP market valued it at -$869,220 or an average of -.84 cents/MWh.  The “0” and negative values for the HOEP lasted 77 continuous hours, breaking a prior record of 62 hours.

Wasted, unneeded wind power

Third, during the three days, ratepayers picked up the bill for 99,109 MWh of curtailed wind which exceeded the transmission (TX) and distribution (DX) connected wind by 60.2%. Curtailed wind at an estimated $120/MWh alone cost ratepayers $11.9 million, driving the price of delivered wind (61,882MWh) to a cost of $335.34/MWh or 33.5 cents a kWh.  Total wind costs were $20.8 million.

Fourth, solar power over the three days generated and curtailed (1,124 MWh) 35,539 MWh at a cost of   $16.8 million, which works out to $472.86/MWh or 47.3 cents/kWh.

Fifth was the cost of gas which in three days produced 18,433 MWh, but the cost was $12.5 million and $676.56/MWh or 67.7 cents/kWh.  The 9,943 MW of IESO grid-connected gas operated at 2.6% of actual capacity during the three days.

Sixth was the generosity shown to our neighbours in New York, Michigan and Quebec who took delivery of 157,768 MWh of free power along with a payment of $132,525.

The quick math on the above indicates a cost of wind, solar and gas generation plus the payment for exported power comes to $50.2 million.

Nuclear and hydro was all we needed

That’s bad enough, but if you look at nuclear and hydro generation during those three days, clearly the $50.2 million was “money for nothing” paid for by Ontario’s ratepayers.  Nuclear (including steamed-off of 49,118 MWh) was 688,981 MWh and combined with hydro generation of 324,001 MWh of could have provided 1,012,982 MWh versus Ontario’s demand over those three days of 869,232 MWh leaving 143,750 MWh of surplus.  Three days of nuclear and hydro cost $61.9 million or 6.1 cents/kWh.

Bottom line? Ontario ratepayers picked up the bill for not only the $28.1 million paid to Windstream for a canceled offshore wind project, but also another $50.2 million, making the past four days very expensive for everyone.

The $78.3 million could have been better spent on health care or so many other pressing needs!

It’s time to kill the Green Energy Act and cancel any uncompleted wind and solar contracts before all our weekends turn out like this one!

Premier Wynne’s $50-billion elephant

Do a Google search of “premier wynne+elephant in the room” you get 1,140,000 hits while a search for just “premier wynne” only gets 486,000 hits. The word “elephant” has been used by Ontario’s premier on a number of occasions. For example, the “elephant” popped up at one of the expensive Ontario Liberal Party fundraising dinners a year ago where she declared, referring to the provincial deficit, “So while some want to characterize Ontario’s deficit as the elephant in the room, I think a panda is the more appropriate metaphor,” she said. “Truly, Jia Panpan and Jia Yueyue [visiting pandas at the Toronto Zoo] were adorable. But the pandas are leaving Ontario in 2018, and in 2017-18 our deficit will be gone, too.”

The “elephant” has returned for her government in the form of high electricity prices but instead of cute little “pandas,” Premier Wynne was forced to call them her “mistake”!

Let’s look at that elephant now.

The recent release of Ontario Power Generation (OPG) 2016 annual report provides enough information to allow one to figure out exactly what created the elephantine mistake and where to point the finger.   To do that we will compare the results of 2016 to 2009* and show the cause of the above market climb in electricity prices.

Price Comparison

IESO’s (Independent Electricity System Operator) data discloses the cost of electricity generation in 2009 was 6.22 cents/kWh or $62.20 per megawatt hour (MWh) or $62.2 million/TWh (terawatt hour) and in 2016 was 11.32 cents/kWh or $113.20/MWh or $113.2 million/TWh. The increase from 2009 to 2016 represents a jump of 82% in only seven years and in simple terms, is a jump of 11.7% annually.

Using the above prices to show the full cost of electricity generation in those two years is accomplished by multiplying total generation by the cost per TWh so:

Total generation 2009: 148 TWh X $62.2 MM= $9,205 MM

Total generation 2016: 149.5 TWh X $113.2 million = $16,923 MM

(Source: IESO)

That means an increase of $7,718 million (+83.8%) in the raw cost of the commodity-electricity.

Finding the “mistake”

Why did the cost jump 83.8%?

Let’s start with the generation produced by OPG who, according to their 2009 annual report generated 92.5 TWh and 78.2 TWh in 2016. Bruce Nuclear in 2009 generated 35.7 TWh and in 2016 they generated 46.1 TWh.  Collectively OPG plus Bruce generated 128.2 TWh in 2009 and that represented 86.6% of total generation (148 TWh) by all generators that year.  In 2016 the collective total was 124.3 TWh which represented 83.1% of all generation (149.5 TWh) in that year as reported by IESO.

Costing the generation 

2009

For OPG: The costing of generation coming from OPG is a relatively simple task requiring only their gross revenue for the year divided by the generation they reported.  For 2009 gross revenue was $5,640 million for the 92.5 TWh delivered making the all-in cost $61 million/TWh.

For Bruce Nuclear: The reported price paid to Bruce was $65.90/MWH.   So, for the 35.7 TWh they generated, the gross revenue generated was $2,352 million or $65.9 million /TWh.

The combined costs of $5,640 million from OPG plus the $2,352 million from Bruce was $7,992 billion to produce 128.2 TWh making the combined cost per TWh $62.34 million or 6.23 cents/kWh.

As noted above, total costs for all generation reported by IESO for 2009 was $9,205 million meaning $1,213 million ($9,205 million less OPG/Bruce combined of $7,992 million) was spent to acquire the 19.8 TWh generated by the other private generators, making their costs per TWh $61.3 million or 6.13 cents/kWh.  (Note: 9.8 TWh was generated by OPG’s coal plants in 2009.)

2016

For OPG: As noted above OPG in 2016 generated 78.2 TWh and their gross revenue was $5,653 million making their generation cost per TWh $72.3 million (7.23 cents/kWh).  Included in OPG’s gross revenue was a $207 million payment for hydro spillage of 4.7 TWh due to SPG^2. (surplus base-load generation).

For Bruce Nuclear: Bruce in 2016 generated 46.1 TWh at a reported cost of $66 million/TWh making so gross revenue was $3,043 million including the cost of steaming off almost 1 TWh due to SBG.  

The combined costs of $5,653 from OPG plus the $3,043 million from Bruce was $8,696 million to produce 124.3 TWh making the combined cost per TWh $70 million or 7.0 cents/kWh.

Cost of the “other” generation

The all-in costs for generation for 2016 was, as noted above, $16,923 million. If one deducts the combined costs of OPG and Bruce Nuclear for their generation in 2016 ($8,696 million) the balance of $8,227 million went to pay for the 25.2 TWh produced by other generators.   Simply dividing the $8,227 million by the 25.2 TWh creates a cost per TWh of $326.5 million or 32.7 cents/kWh. ***

Had the 25.2 TWh cost ratepayers $70 million/TWh, or the same as the OPG/Bruce Nuclear generation combination (25.2 TWh X $70 million = $1,764 million), Ontario ratepayers would not be on the hook for the $6.9 billion in excess costs! ($8,227 million – $1,764 million= $6,932 million or the very high $326.5 million/TWh)

In just one year’s data, compared to 2009, we have located many of the reasons for higher electricity costs. The Premier now claims $50 billion was needed to invest in transmission and generation but her “mistake” was in not seeing the costs would go up more than 83%, principally related to the acquisition of intermittent, unreliable renewable energy from wind and solar!

There may be even more elephants in this particular room.

 

*The choice of 2009 is related to the Legislative passage of the Green Energy and Green Economy Act (GEA) in the Spring of that year creating the FIT and MicroFIT programs and subsequent acquisition of renewable energy at above market prices.

**Surplus Base-load Generation is simply anticipated “base-load less Ontario demand”.

***The per TWh cost reflects the FIT contracted generation for industrial wind turbines, solar panels, bio-mass along with curtailed wind, conservation spending, the cost of selling our surplus power to other jurisdictions at only 15% of its cost, etc. etc.

Hydro One: can it deliver on its dividend promise?

The headline on the Hydro One February 10 press release was:  “Hydro One Reports Positive Fourth Quarter Revenue and Operating Cost Trends.” Annual “revenues, net of purchased power” came in at $3,125 million, an increase of $37 million (.4%) over 2015, while Net Income rose from $714 million to $746 million, and “adjusted” earnings per share increased to $1.21/share up from $1.16/share.

If you believe the reporting by Hydro One, you are led to believe a small increase in revenue translated to an almost identical increase in after-tax income.

A closer look is necessary to determine how that happened. As it turns out, transmission revenue was up $48 million and distribution revenue was down $11 million, accounting for the revenue increase. Regulatory assets^1. climbed $130 million while operations, maintenance and administration (OMA) apparently fell by $66 million. It is not clear how many millions of OMA expenses were placed into “regulatory assets,” but we should assume a portion of salaries, pensions and benefits were.

As a result, it is impossible to determine whether Hydro One has become more or less efficient, despite this claim in the press release: “Our fourth quarter results demonstrate favourable revenue growth and operating cost control.” We can quickly see “favourable revenue growth” was small potatoes!

There are ways of using information in that press release and annual report to allow for calculations. One area that affects ratepayers is “delivery” costs which is reflected in Hydro One’s “distribution” business line. The annual report indicates the amount of electricity distributed to their 1.3 million residential and business customers fell 8.6% from 28,763 gigawatts (GWh) to 26,289 GWh while distribution revenue fell by $11 million from $1,499 million to $1,488 million. Using simple division one is able to calculate the cost of distribution per megawatt (MWh) increased from $52.05/MWh to $56.60/MWh for an increase of 8.7% or $4.55/MWh.

Everyone pays

Not all of that increase was paid for by Hydro One customers, however, as Hydro One receives revenue from all of Ontario’s ratepayers via the OESP (Ontario Electricity Support Program) which presumably resulted in the year over year drop (at a minimum) of $26 million in Hydro One’s “Allowance for doubtful accounts” from $61 million to $35 million. As well, all Ontario ratepayers pick up the costs of the RRRPP (rural and remote rate protection plan) which was $125.4 million for Hydro One in 2016 and will increase in 2017 to $243.4 million. Adjusting the distribution revenue to reflect contributions to Hydro One by all Ontario ratepayers would reduce their distribution costs to about $54/MWh (5.4 cents/kWh) and bring it almost in line with the claim by Hydro One their distribution/delivery costs represent about 37% of their customer’s electricity bills before HST. If one does the calculation on the OEB’s website however the actual cost of the “delivery” line for a “medium density” Hydro One ratepayer is 43%!

Another asset that showed a big jump on Hydro One’s balance sheet in 2016 was “goodwill” which more than doubled to $327 million, despite their having recovered $60 million in goodwill from the provincial acquisition of Hydro One Brampton before Hydro One went public. This also occurred just before the arranged merger of Hydro One Brampton with PowerStream, Horizon and Enersource. Hydro One has been snapping up some of the small local distribution companies (LDC) such as Norfolk Power, Woodstock Hydro, Haldimand for the past few years and recently applied to the OEB for acquisition of Orillia Power. Hydro One also just completed acquisition of Great Lakes Transmission improving the monopolistic control they hold in this business line to over 98%.   The LDC acquisitions were made well above book value and many of them had their delivery rates frozen for five years.

With Hydro One’s success at being the second most expensive hydro distributor we should expect the ratepayers in the locales of the acquired LDC will see their future delivery rates jump significantly.

On the liability side of Hydro One’s ledger, 2016 saw the acquisition of about $1.7 billion of increased and mainly long-term debt yet, their negative working capital position only improved $716 million. The additional debt raised during the year caused their Debt/Equity ratio to rise from 1.45:1 at the end of 2015 to 1.52:1 at the end of 2016 and brought with it increased interest costs. A rising D:E ratio often precedes a credit rating drop!

Dividend promise impossible, unless …

All this points to a company whose future is dependent on the OEB granting their every wish to increase delivery/distribution rates. If not, the promise to dividend out 70/80% of their annual net profits becomes impossible unless they either: forgo proper maintenance of the infrastructure, or reduce OMA costs via either staff reductions or salary cuts, or sell off assets!

Dividends paid in 2016 on the 5,623,000 common shares were $577 million representing 80% of net income attributable to common shares with just over $400 million going to the provincial treasury leaving about $150 million^2. in retained earnings for future investments in infrastructure repairs and refurbishment and the building and/or improvement to the transmission grid(s) and LDC infrastructure.

Something’s got to give, or future increases to Hydro One’s ratepayers will be even worse than the past!

 

1. Regulatory assets “represent certain amounts receivable from future customers and costs that have been deferred for accounting purposes because it is probable that they will be recovered in future rates.”
2. Capital spending in 2016 was reported as $1.6 billion.  

Surplus power: the other side of wind’s “success story”

Napanee gas plant: more flexible resources needed to offset intermittent wind — trouble is, they also push emissions up

January 23, 2017

The Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) summarized their submission on Ontario’s long-term energy plan (LTEP) to the IESO on their website.  “Ontario is the Canadian leader in clean wind energy with 4,781 megawatts of installed capacity, supplying about 5 per cent of the electricity that Ontarians depend on,” CanWEA said. “Wind has been the largest source of new electricity generation across Canada over the past decade. Over this time, costs have come down as capacity factors have increased.”

Here’s the other side of that apparent success story. It’s not as rosy as CanWEA, the wind power industry lobbyist, would like you to believe.

The IESO just released the 2016 Electricity Data indicating industrial wind turbines (IWT) were responsible for the generation of 9.0 terawatts (TWh) of power, representing 6% of Ontario demand of 137 TWh.

What IESO doesn’t say about wind power generation, however, is annoying.  IWT generation in 2016 was actually10.7 TWh when DX (distributor connected) industrial-scale wind turbines or IWTs are included.  If the 2.2 TWh of “curtailed” wind is added, the bill to ratepayers was for 13 TWh.  The estimate of curtailed and DX wind comes from Scott Luft who does a remarkable job of tracking what is actually happening with generation.  IESO fails to disclose either curtailed or DX generation for whatever reason as they are the settlement agent for all generation in the province.

They have the data available to supply the public with those details.

Surplus baseload means possible grid failure

Not surprisingly IESO continue to run “stakeholder committees” that generate reports disclosing concerns about the intermittent and unreliable nature of wind (and solar), referencing it as “Variable Generation.” They note the production of Surplus Baseload Generation (SBG) which may cause grid failure leading to brownouts or blackouts. One of those reports from May 2016 noted: “SBG in ~65% of hours in 2015, even with 2 major nuclear outages” and “So far, SBG in ~88% of hours in 2016”.

Interestingly enough the current Minister of Energy, Glenn Thibeault on December 16, 2016 issued a directive to IESO instructing them to negotiate an exit from some of the NUG (non-utility generators) gas contracts labeled as “baseload” generators. IESO obeyed the directive as noted by my friend Scott Luft in his recent post “Ontario’s IESO steps off the gas”. We should suspect this action was not aimed at reducing SBG, but instead is aimed as trying to give credibility to the addition of the “cap and trade” tax that took effect January 1, 2017 by showing some negligible reduction in emissions.

The oxymoron in that is also to be found in a June 2016 IESO report titled: “Review of the Operability of the IESO-Controlled Grid to 2020” which suggested:

“We recommend enhancing the flexibility of Ontario supply resources to ensure that there are increased quantities of resources able to address the hour-ahead VG forecast inaccuracy, 95% of the time. This translates to needing ~1,000 MW of additional flexibility. The additional flexibility needs to be located in unconstrained parts of the system to ensure they can operate without restriction. Methods to enhance the flexibility of Ontario resources could include: increased utilization of existing resources, enabling simple cycle operation at combined cycle plants, or adding new peaking generation, grid energy storage or demand response resources. Methods chosen, which are expected to happen through open competitive processes, must ensure that they are cost effective and can meet expected operational duty requirements – given that these resources are required in the near-term to address reliability needs.”

Serious problems with wind

What IESO’s concerns and subsequent recommendations suggest is the variable and unpredictable nature of wind generation has created serious problems in the eyes of those entrusted to run Ontario’s electricity system.

So, here are the facts: power generation from wind cost Ontario’s ratepayers over $1.7 billion (approximately 12% of total generation costs) in 2016 for just over 6% of demand, and will cause ratepayers hydro bills to be further affected negatively.   IESO’s responsibility to manage the system through the exercises suggested in their recommendations will cost the system more money, increasing costs just to ensure industrial wind developments are able to extract money from the pockets of Ontario’s ratepayers.

The government of Ontario led by Premier Wynne will (in the near future) claim their actions on the electricity file were instrumental in reducing emissions, but here’s the thing: the flexible resources IESO seeks will push the emissions up again.

The trick is, that won’t be seen until after the 2018 election.

Forecast for April 2017: the news on electricity bills will be terrible

Reducing electricity bills is hard when you keep signing contracts for more power Ontario doesn’t need. (Photo:THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mark Blinch)

November 29, 2016

The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) just released the Monthly Summary for October 2016. Comparing the prices to their report for October 2015 will make you weep.

Comparing the two months one year apart, you’ll see Ontario’s consumption decreased by almost 170,000 megawatts (MWh), but the costs of consuming less increased the commodity cost by over $176 million.

What that means: the 1% drop in consumption from 10.7 TWh (terawatts) to 10.5 TWh will probably result in the OEB (Ontario Energy Board) raising prices in the spring of 2017.

Here’s why. In 2016 we exported 1.4 TWh of power, one full TWh more than in 2015.  The 2015 hourly Ontario energy price (HOEP) was also $10/MWh higher than 2016, and so for that reason our 2016 net exports cost us $110 million more.  Coupling that drop in HOEP and the additional exports, my friend Scott Luft also estimated a wind curtailment* increase by the Independent Electricity System Operator or IESO (year over year) of 180,000 MWh.  The cost of that curtailment added an estimated $22 million to October’s costs of electricity.

October is a bad sign

If October is just the beginning of five months of increases, the news in mid-April 2017 when the OEB announces the price of electricity for the following six months will be terrible.

The “mistake” Premier Wynne admitted to at the Ontario Liberal Party Convention in Ottawa just days ago will loom even larger by mid-April 2017 as any increase will create more energy poverty. I would remind all at the convention she noted: “In the weeks and the months ahead, we are going to find more ways to lower rates and reduce the burden on consumers.”  Those “ways to lower rates” are getting harder to find as the government continues to sign new long-term power contracts.

I believe electricity ratepayers in Ontario would welcome some relief from the burden of our electricity bills, but I fear the damage caused by the Green Energy Act will take a decade or more before Ontarians see it.

Cancel, now

Premier Wynne should immediately cancel plans to acquire any more wind and solar power generation as planned under Large Renewable Procurement (LRP) I and LRP II as a demonstration of genuine concern for energy poverty and the citizens of Ontario.

*Curtailment: reduction in scheduled capacity or energy delivery

NAFTA wind farm decision shows need for onshore wind power research too

October 26, 2016

The events of the past few months have been difficult for new Minister of Energy Glenn Thibeault as he continues to try to defend his predecessors’ decisions. He has tried to justify: increased energy poverty, the fastest growing electricity rates in North America, the slow demise of energy intensive enterprises (manufacturing, mining, refining, pulp and paper production, etc.), gas plant cancellations and the privatization of Hydro One, to name a few.

Not to be ignored are the many challenges lodged by rural ratepayers against contract awards allowing construction of industrial-scale wind power projects in their communities. Thousands of those ratepayers have challenged the contracts and spent millions of personal after-tax dollars sitting in front of Environmental Review Tribunals, valiantly doing their best to protect the environment and wildlife from the highly invasive power projects. Only a very small percentage of the challenges have proven successful.

Just days ago another ruling was issued and once again it was in favour of an industrial wind developer. This time however, it came from a tribunal sanctioned under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and it was against the Government of Canada because of actions by the Ontario government.

The challenge by Windstream Energy LLC resulted in an award of $25 million and an additional $3 million in legal fees against the decision by the provincial governing party to place a moratorium on a contract granted to Windstream for an offshore 300-MW wind development.

The ruling by the tribunal “found that the Government of Ontario treated Windstream Energy LLC’s (Windstream) investments in Canada unfairly and inequitably” and also ruled “on the whole did relatively little to address the scientific uncertainty” surrounding offshore wind that it relied upon as the main publicly cited reason for the moratorium.

If one were to discuss the contracts awarded by the Ontario Power Authority or IESO with the people who have challenged wind power projects at Environmental Review Tribunals I suspect the words: unfairly and inequitably would be frequently heard.  Many rural Ontarians living in proximity to operating turbine installations and suffering the effects of audible and inaudible (infrasound) noise would raise the issue of the lack of research on the effects of the noise on humans.

“Relatively little” has been done to address the scientific uncertainty surrounding onshore wind turbines, as well.

Parker Gallant