Ontario's Sick Electricity Sector Symptom of the Week: Paying gas generators not to generate

It will be a couple of days until I'll update the weekly reporting, but the generator data is set, and much of the pricing data.  In week 11 (March 14th - 20th) the frequency of steam bypass maneuvers at Bruce B increased, but we also see another supply curtailment method used over the weekend - the idling of non-utility generators (NUGs).  Over the weekend Ontario appears to have been simultaneously paying one of Canada's power giants, TransAlta, not to produce with natural gas at co-generation facilities while purchasing the output from their intermittently generating wind properties.

Curtailment of the NUGs is usually for a number of days.  One of the reasons is contracts that predate the current electricity system's structure.  The contracts were with Ontario Hydro, and when that ceased to exist they were transferred to the Ontario Electricity Financial Corporation (OEFC).  Operationally, that means the shutdowns need to be scheduled in advance.  In this instance, the surplus baseload generation (SBG) reporting indicated far too much supply over the weekend, and NUG's were curtailed, by about the same wattage as one of Pickering's units, from late Friday night to the demand ramp up Monday morning.  

NUG contracts are private, but estimated above $100/MWh.

2 of the curtailed NUG units were TransAlta properties in Ottawa and Windsor.  Those units produced about 5800MWh less generation than they usually do in the 54 hours from 11pm Friday to 6 am Monday.  It is likely we paid around $580,000 to curtail the production (assuming $100/MWh)

TransAlta also owns the Amaranth and Wolfe Island industrial wind turbines.  Over the 54 hours the grid had to take abour 3500MWh of output from those locations.  It is likely we paid around $472,500 for this supply (assuming $135/MWh)

The average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) was around $11/MWH over that period, so we would have paid, to only TransAlta, over $1 million more than we received when reselling the power we did actually take.

TransAlta has ownership interests in over 4000MW of coal generation capacity in Alberta.