hot Sunday, windy Sunday

I noted Sunday morning curtailment of potential generation was around record levels - a claim repeated Sunday afternoon at a rally against a facility in Prince Edward County. My friend Parker Gallant subsequently wrote on the wasted wind that day. I thought a post comparing the past Sunday to other days might be instructive.

I developed a single page daily report some time ago - something Parker felt useful. The report for Sunday October 15th estimates the cost to a Class B consumer of consuming one megawatt-hour of electricity at $145/MWh.

$145/MWh was up steeply from the $108/MWh I estimated as the average cost for Class B consumers on the previous day. That $37 difference is greater than the difference estimated for exporters: on Saturday their price averaged $27/MWh; on Sunday it was free. The difference in cost for exporters is due to the change in the Hourly Ontario Energy Price, which dropped from $135/MWh in hour 9 on Saturday, when wind was forecast to produce 149 megawatts, to negative prices overnight and back up to $0/MWh in hour 9 on Sunday when wind was forecast to produce 3,876 megawatts. The correlation is not difficult to spot:

chart (41).png



I also created a daily summary for Sunday September 24th, which was warm humid day that produced the 5th highest daily Ontario Demand peak of 2017.

24sum1.PNG

On hot September 24th I estimate electricity supply cost of $36 million, of which $728 thousand was due to industrial wind turbines.

15sum1.PNG

On windy October 15 I estimate electricity supply cost of $38 million, of which $11.8 million was due to industrial wind turbines.

Advocates of spending on efficiency rightly point out that while the cost of unit of electricity may rise for an efficient consumer, overall prices do not. Advocates of wind often try to represent themselves as a green package along with efficiency, but observation reveals the opposite in Ontario.

Much of wind is wasted in this province.

Electricity pricing no longer depends on the demand that is significantly influenced by temperature, but on supply due to wind and sun.

Comments

  1. Cold Air20 October 2017 at 03:46

    Parker Gallant wrote something on wind wasted on Tuesday the 17th: https://parkergallantenergyperspectivesblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/20/weekends-or-weekdays-wind-is-a-waste/

    I had not talked to Parker but I had prepared daily summaries for that Tuesday, and the one 3 weeks earlier.
    Sept. 26: https://1drv.ms/b/s!Ao012Fem8UCvkj_yob6868nWKrv3
    Oct. 17: https://1drv.ms/b/s!Ao012Fem8UCvkj63PICnAFHiqUec

    The bottom line is the total cost paid for supply on October 17th was higher despite a 24% drop in "Ontario Demand" - which causes the estimated Class B rate surge from $88 to $134. The main reason cost was higher was an $8 million increase in the cost of purchasing wind output, or wind curtailment.

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