Blog Creator/Administrator: Scott Luft
Coldwater, Ontario
E-mail: Cold.Luft@gmail.com
Twitter: @ScottLuft
Cold Air Currents contains posts from the web of interest to Scott, generally with a comment as to why I find the cited material relevant to post.
The Cold Air Data site is a collection of data intensive pages reporting on Ontario's Electricity System
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New efforts (June 2013)
On Pinterest- hoping it becomes a good home for some of my favourite energy graphics to be pinned up on display boards
On Tumblr, with "intersting finds too long for twitter and too short for blogger"
Hi Scott yet again more ineptitude from the government ( what else is new...) The "market" is not the problem, the market has been the only piece of this mess that has functioned as it should.. and can I remind everyone market prices have gone DOWN.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is everything else outside the market, the distortions introduced via the GA is one big one.. So in an effort to address the issue of high costs the path chosen is not to fix the problem which is the GA, but to introduce yet more distortion to add to and offset the current distortion.
Do you remember the old song about the old lady that swallowed a fly? Sounds a bit like that.
If we are going to accept electricity as a industrial policy tool, then why do we have all this nonsense, IESO/IMO/OEB etc?
It does appear that our political masters have an astonishing ability to continue to ensure we end up with the worst of all worlds
I love your sites. I read them often and rely on them to learn the truth about the state of electricity generation (and politics) in Ontario.
ReplyDeleteI have some questions for you...
The net exports, graphed on your site, and listed on IESO, tell us how much electricity is crossing the border, but where do we find the revenue generated by these exports? And as complex as it may be, how do we know the true costs of this exported production?
I only now noticed this comment (long story, but basically I don't see comments on pages - only only the blog entries).
DeleteThese are really terrific questions.
On the revenues for exports crossing an international border, the best answer I know of is the National Energy Board ( http://www.neb-one.gc.ca/clf-nsi/rnrgynfmtn/sttstc/lctrctyxprtmprt/lctrctyxprtmprt-eng.html ). For a while the IESO reported the figures, and I'd estimate the revenue was usually about 10% higher than the HOEP indicates ( which makes sense as they are exports from our lower priced market to higher priced markets).
I'm not aware of any estimate on exports to Quebec.
The true cost of exported production is a real tough one. Much of the exported power is generated at coal and natural gas-fired generators, both of which are essentially paid for through capacity payments via the global adjustment (charged only in Ontario) - for these exports the incremental cost is just the cost of the fuel, and that's why the exports occur.
These don't cost Ontario ratepayers.
Bruce Power also gets paid the same regardless, so really any price above $0 on exports doesn't cost Ontario ratepayers on that generation.
Wind and solar also have been must-take contracts, so those exports don't cost Ontario ratepayers more than not exporting.
The problem is we continue to sign these contracts while Ontarians are now paying ~$80/MWh, while the excess contracted sells at under $30/MWh.