Parker Gallant: Maximizing the mess with Ontario's electricity assets

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Ontario's electricity system has not yet passed gas

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Ontario’s electricity system includes generators fueled by natural gas. This is suddenly a hot topic as a campaign lobbying councils to say no to this type of generation moves through municipalities. The “no gas” lobbying appeals to a desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, exploiting predictions of increased use of natural gas in generating electricity in the province. This article will explore what entities have been the key drivers of emissions in Ontario’s electricity system, the credibility of the body being cited predicting increased generation fueled by natural gas and, if all goes well, convince the reader they are not willing to decrease global carbon emissions at any cost. Background on the IESO’s pretend market My previous post reconstructed a method to estimate losses on electricity exports out of Ontario. The measure does not indicate Ontario would be better off if it didn’t export its excess, but that Ontario would be better off with data discipline and consistent me...
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TVO's Paikin chooses to be a reason "why rates keep rising"

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It took Steve Paikin 4 seconds to mislead the viewers of Ontario's public broadcaster last night. "Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk's year-end report found that Ontarians overpaid for electricity by 37 billion dollars. " -  podcast No, The Auditor General's year-end report stated, correctly: Global Adjustment fees, which are the excess payments to generators over the market price, amounted to $37 billion from 2006 to 2014 Should this confuse Mr. Paikin? The electricity issue is not a a new one in Ontario and the global adjustment, while complex in some respects, does essentially refer to the difference between what a generator is paid, by contract (say $100 per unit), and what the market valued that power at (say $20 per unit). ... "Joining us now to explore why rates keep rising and  other mysteries of the energy file..." Of a 3 person panel on Paikin's show, one has a history of distracting people from understanding Ontario's energy file, and anot...
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Spilling on OPG's wasted hydro

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Ontario continues to waste its water rights on the Niagara river. I revisited some posts I've written on this topic today, and updated data to bring the graphics up to the end of 2015 A very quick refresher to explain this first graphic. The U.S. and Canada share water rights on the Niagara river. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) runs the Niagara river power plants in Ontario, and there are similar plants on the U.S side (R. Moses Niagara). When I first encountered the issue  in 2011, the U.S. side had additional generation because OPG could not get enough water through its turbines to utilize the full allocation. In March 2013 OPG completed the Niagara tunnel , which was to get more water to it's turbines. OPG claimed output would increase by 1.6 million megawatt-hours (MWh). I've collected Ontario generation data back to 2010, and compared monthly summaries to the U.S. Energy Information Administration data for the U.S. sites. The opposite of what should have happene...
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