Wind Is Not Replacing Coal

Wind is not going to replace coal in Ontario.  There are many claims wind generation is yet to replace any fossil fuel generating station in any jurisdiction, but Ontario may be particularly poorly suited for the introduction of industrial wind generation into our supply mix.  Electricity pricing looks to be an important issue destined to occupy much of the discourse in Ontario’s election this fall.  People generally don’t believe the government, but they also don’t believe bills could be rising so quickly, so much new capacity being announced, and yet some forecasts show shortages again by the end of the decade.  All are true, and the key driver of pricing increases in Ontario is a reckless disregard for operational efficiency that is driven by wind proponents.  That could lead to future shortages.

Summer has become the season where Ontario exhibits it’s peak demand period, and 2011 has performed as expected – as did 2010.  Both may be somewhat unique in that the average hourly Ontario consumption, in July, exceeded Ontario’s average hourly demand in January.  The combination of highest peak, and highest overall consumption, is new.  However, since one big argument  for renewable is the need to halt anthropogenic global warming (AGW), it follows that trend, of July being warmer and demand being driven by air conditioning, should continue, and it’s probably worthwhile to review each July since 2003 to see how we’ve done on the battle against burning coal – and what, if anything, is replacing coal’s role in July’s supply mix.   

It's very hard to spot any trend, aside from 2009 indicating demand reduction causes less production from carbon sources.  Compared to 2004, demand in 2011’s July will end up around 1000MW/hour higher, and the production from coal, natural gas, and other fuels (such as Lennox) will also be about 1000MW greater.  We did see an improvement in 2011 over 2010, but not a particularly helpful one, because the main replacement there was hydro generation, and that was entirely due to a wetter first half of 2011 - which is not something we should count on.   

Hydro is most productive during the April and May before starting a decline in output that usually persists through October.  The spring freshet coincides with two of our lowest demand months, in April and May, and, combined with our nuclear output, and existing contracts with non-utility generators (NUGs), we already have trouble reducingproduction of electricity in the spring.  Wind, similarly, was 3 times as productive this April as this July, and twice as productive in May as in July.  That trend is typical.

Wind averages under a 15% capacity factor in Ontario.  Additional generation is likely to lower that figure, assuming the best sites are the first to be built.  There's also some evidence turbines productivity begins to decline very quickly.  Port Alma's older turbines' capacity factors lag the new Port Alma2 installation by about 1.5%, despite Port Alma only being 2 years older.  

Year	Month	Amaranth	Gosfield	Kings-bridge	Port Alma	Port Alma2	Port Burwell	Princefarm	Ripley	Spence	Under-woodwgs	Wolfe Island	Total
2009	07	16.3%		9.9%	17.6%		13.9%	15.4%	11.1%		13.7%	14.5%	14.7%
2010	07	16.3%		12.4%	16.2%		12.4%	15.1%	13.3%		15.8%	17.0%	15.4%
2010	08	17.6%		16.6%	14.3%		12.9%	22.2%	18.4%		18.6%	20.2%	18.3%
2010	09	29.3%	25.5%	33.8%	31.0%		25.8%	36.9%	32.7%		34.6%	32.5%	32.2%
2010	10	29.3%	36.4%	35.2%	36.9%		32.4%	30.7%	29.0%		33.1%	32.4%	32.1%
2010	11	31.9%	38.2%	42.1%	40.2%	62.2%	33.1%	43.7%	39.5%		38.7%	33.0%	37.9%
2010	12	26.2%	41.5%	51.8%	46.8%	50.0%	39.0%	31.0%	53.2%		48.0%	34.5%	39.2%
2011	01	21.1%	30.6%	30.5%	31.9%	35.7%	27.3%	22.1%	32.9%		30.0%	22.0%	26.7%
2011	02	43.2%	54.0%	45.2%	52.3%	56.9%	46.7%	34.0%	49.5%		48.5%	42.1%	45.4%
2011	03	26.8%	33.8%	31.1%	38.0%	39.7%	26.4%	27.9%	31.9%	43.0%	29.2%	29.3%	31.1%
2011	04	37.6%	48.0%	38.1%	49.1%	50.6%	35.5%	31.4%	38.1%	60.2%	38.4%	38.5%	40.5%
2011	05	22.8%	30.9%	25.2%	32.4%	34.0%	19.9%	24.8%	25.5%	37.5%	25.4%	30.1%	27.3%
2011	06	20.1%	22.5%	19.5%	24.9%	27.2%	17.7%	26.4%	16.4%	28.1%	15.5%	18.8%	21.2%
2011	07	12.1%	12.9%	11.1%	13.6%	15.0%	10.2%	13.7%	11.9%	16.9%	13.5%	9.7%	12.6%

 Update August:  The July figures in the original post were as of July 27th.  Final data saw marginal changes to:

Year	Month	Amaranth	Gosfield	Kings-bridge	Port Alma	Port Alma2	Port Burwell	Princefarm	Ripley	Spence	Under-woodwgs	Wolfe Island	Total
2011	07	13.6	13.4%	11.0%	13.9%	16.0%	12.0%	13.1%	12.0%	17.6%	13.6%	12.3%	13.5%

 
Worse again, while the average approaches a 15% CF, the data history shows over 45% of the time it is under 10%, and nearly a quarter of the time, in July, the CF for wind production is under 5%.  If we accepted that 45% of the time we might need to curtail use during calm periods, and planned on the 55% of time wind will be above a production level of 10% of nameplate capability, in July, we would need about 30,000MW of wind capacity to replace the 3000MW of coal being generated through the hottest portions on July 21st's peak usage period.

30,000MW isn’t planned – so wind replacing coal isn’t planned.  What is planned isn't sufficient to meet July demand, and is far in excess of sufficient to meet demand at other times.

The recent supply mix directive (SMD) stated; “Based on forecast assessments of what the system can accommodate, the OPA shall plan for 10,700MW of renewable energy capacity, excluding hydroelectric, by 2018.”  I have a number of issues with that - the ministerial directives include demands to build the capacity to accommodate renewable which are to be of a volume to fill the capacity, all quite oblivious to consumer cost concerns or matching supply capabilities to demand requirements.  There is an acknowledgement there will be frequent occasions when the grid won’t be able to accept the output of the rabidly multiplying IWTs; it came in the form of ensuring there is a process to pay wind suppliers for the output foregone because the grid can’t accept it.  

I’ve undertaken a data exercise to explore what’s happened to Ontario’s production efficiency, and what is projected to happen in the next 7 or 8 years.    Using a variety of sources, including historical data from the IESO, projected data from industry groups, the supply mix directive, and making some judgement calls on nuclear's future, I built a rough overview of what sources have been added, and what is to come.  The assumptions that differ in my data model,  (first tab here), from recent studies by Pembina and Clearsky, are primarily nuclear, where I assume Pickering has some capacity continuing until refurbishments are completed at Darlington.

	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Coal	7,614	7,614	7,614	6,484	6,484	6,484	6,484	6,484	4,484	3,504	3,504	3,289	2,983	0	0	0	0
Gas	2,215	2,215	2,827	2,827	2,944	2,944	4,491	6,457	7,449	7,449	7,842	7,842	8,428	8,428	8,428	8,428	8,428
Hydro	7,686	7,686	7,766	7,766	7,766	7,786	7,810	7,947	7,947	7,947	7,994	8,241	8,288	8,793	8,793	8,793	9,000
Nuclear	8,864	10,149	10,931	11,446	11,446	11,446	11,446	11,446	11,446	11,446	12,000	12,000	12,000	12,000	12,000	12,000	12,000
Other	2,177	2,177	2,177	2,177	2,177	2,177	2,177	2,177	2,224	2,241	2,261	2,565	2,615	3,990	3,990	3,990	3,990
Solar	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	232	513	793	1,074	1,355	1,355	1,355	1,355
Wind	0	0	0	0	396	472	705	1,085	1,186	1,856	2,424	2,889	3,859	4,619	5,509	6,270	6,990
Total	28,556	29,841	31,315	30,700	31,213	31,309	33,113	35,596	34,736	34,675	36,537	37,619	39,247	39,185	40,075	40,836	41,763

With this history, and forecasts for demand, the trend in the overall system utilization, shown as the capacity factor, illustrates how efficiency has deteriorated, and is planned to continue deteriorating 

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It is difficult to accept efficiency is no longer desirable, but harder still to accept when contracts, specifically the feed-in tariff contracts (FIT), are to pay suppliers regardless of need.  The frequency of oversupply looks certain to rapidly escalate.  It is reasonable to expect the ‘must run’ power to be 10000MW of nuclear, 2500-3000 of hydro and another 1000-1200MW of either gas or “other” must-run contracts (often non-utility generator contracts, or NUGs, which the OPA has been directed, through a directive from the minister, to extend).  The plan is now to have too much supply 20-25% of the time without the output from wind turbines, with the added plan that we pay for another 0-7000MW depending on the wind, (averaging about 2000MW by 2018).  

April 11^th, 2011, had a lot of wind.  The capacity factor (CF) over the day was above 83%.  4 days prior to that Ontario had the only day since last August when it was a net importer of electricity over the entire 24 hours; that day the CF was under 4% for the IWT fleet.    I charted the week (starting Wed., April 6).  Where a space exists (the first 2 days of the week, with little wind), we are importing.  Usually we are exporters:

And to jump forward to 2017, we get a nice picture of what the impact of 5 times the wind capacity, and therefore the output will do.  Even in the mild demand of April, the import period remains an import period.  The export period becomes impossible to manage, as we only have about 4000MW of intertie capacity, so we couldn't dump this much excess.

It isn't particularly difficult to see what source wind proponents need to be eliminated here (although they attack public hydroelectric supply too!).  It's readily apparent why wind industry projections urge the quickest possible reduction of nuclear capacity.  Should Pickering be shuttered by 2016, we will be left with 10000MW of nuclear capacity, but up to 1700 MW could be undergoing refurbishments.  With only a little over 8000MW of nuclear available, 5500MW, optimistically, of hydro, 7000MW, optimistically, of natural gas, 1500MW of solar and maybe 3000MW from other sources (including Lennox), only the most optimistic scenario could allow Ontario to meet a hot, hot, July day's demand given wind's low performance level in hot months.

Far from replacing coal, wind makes it requisite to have alternative generation to fill in the frequent, and often lengthy, lapses in output.  

Natural gas is replacing coal. And if there was no natural gas ...

Wind would be enabling coal.