Huff – Po - The Liberals’ Ho – whistle whistle whistle...

Google led me to a Huffpost Canada stupidity the other day, “Wind Power:  A Quiet Solution to Climate Change”

Following the title comes; “We asked a tough question today: Is the fear and anxiety being spread about the sound of wind power justified?”

A horse’s ass has reason to hope the cart goes before the horse, but it really doesn’t.  The correct first question should address the title;  “Is wind power a solution to climate change? 

It isn’t. 

May 2011 Ontario Electricity Rate Soars

The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) has released the Monthly Market Report for May 2011, and it confirms the message of rapid price inflation for Ontario's business sector.

The Commodity Charge for the businesses/industries subject to the wholesale rate soared to $75.94/MWh, driven primarily by a Global Adjustment charge of $50.05/MWh. That is a 17% increase over May 2010's $64.73.

The total rate of $98.90, including delivery and all other charges, was only 14% higher than one year earlier. That's as close as businesses can expect to get to good news as a glutenous Ontario Power Authority continues to contract additional, and extraordinarily expensive, supply - despite the oversupply we so clearly have.

May 2011 Ontario consumption dropped 5% from the same period in 2010.

All I Want for Global Wind Day Is A Moratorium

June 15^th is apparently Global Wind Day.

I put some thought, and study, into what to wish for, and not just for myself. From the first entry of this blog I've been examining Ontario electricity system issues, particularly supply and demand metrics.

The IESO site now shows the May global adjustment finalized at an enormous $50.05/MWh, while the average HOEP rate averaged $25.89/MWh. The combined rate, $75.94/MWh, is 17% higher than the rate for May 2010. Nothing I did not know on June 1^st, when I wrote about it, and estimated how much the various generation sources contributed to this escalation in rates that accompanies demand drops.

Parkinson's Law and the Innumerate Mr. Miller

Elements of Parkinson's Law:

• Work Expands so as to fill the time available for its completion
• An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals
• Officials make work for each other.

Gord Miller was in the press yesterday, a lot, following the release of Managing a Complex Energy System: Annual Energy conservation Progress Report -2010 (Volume One), with most of the attention going to his description of the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit (OCEB) as “a perverse incentive that undermines conservation efforts.” Mr. Miller's report continued “One estimate of its effect is to increase overall electricity consumption by more than one per cent. This would negate about one-third of the savings that conservation programs are expected to provide between 2011 and 2014.” I'll return to Mr. Miller's interesting use of statistics shortly, but first ...

Searching For Value in Ontario's Electricity System

I'm constantly amazed how difficult it is to underestimate the value of generation from industrial wind turbines.

I have queried hourly generation data by source 'fuels' to demonstrate the 'value' of the various sources. I was inspired to do so while writing my previous post, which calculated average hourly rates of imports/exports for different jurisdictions. Quebec was much more expensive power to import, but that was because we imported from Quebec at more expensive times. I concluded that was because Quebec could run off cheap imports at night to run as little water through the hydro turbines as possible, and run their hydro turbines during more expensive daytime periods for . Using the same process, with another data set, wind is demonstratively the least valuable source in Ontario.

A Valuable Lesson From Ontario-Quebec Electricity Trade

During the first 10 days of June the data shows Ontario has been a net exporter of electricity to Quebec, of approximately 27,565 MWh. Combine the hourly intertie data with hourly price data, and you get a net payment to Quebec of about $3,685,811, which works out to paying Quebec about $134/MWh - just using the net figures. Out of context it isn't a meaningful statistic, but put in context it communicates a lot about value in electricity generation sources. (updated June 12 - see end note 2)

Net Exports Divided by Net Revenue ($/MWh):

	Quebec	Not Quebec	Total
April	$6.11	$27.22	$22.12
May	$10.85	$25.20	$21.89
June	-$133.71	$32.47	$19.88

Smile, And Say "Goebbels" - A note from the government

This release, Electricity Exports Help Keep Ontario's Supply Strong,  is remarkably dishonest


"This revenue helps Ontario:

• Keep costs down for families"

No, this revenue set against the costs of producing the power does not keep costs down for families.  This figure is meaningless by itself, and put together with the purchasing costs adds, by my calculations, $50 million to the costs of Ontario's consumers in the month of May only.  Net Exports (exports less imports) of over 1,300,000 MWh sold for only $3,100,000.

Mayday, Mayday! Global Adjustment Still Soaring to Monthly Records

The operator of Ontario's electricity system, the IESO has posted it's 2^nd estimate of the global adjustment for May 2011, and the estimated rate of $49.94/MWh is a record high, as is the $496.1 million dollars. I've been on the themes driving the increased pricing in Ontario for some time, and May serves as the starkest reminder of the remarkable callousness of Ontario's electricity policy in disregarding Ontario's residents, and it's businesses.