Cold Air from Wordpress

Parker Gallant has a new post covering the Industrial Conservation Initiative (ICI), or Class A Global Adjustment mechanism:  Ontario’s class distinction stings ordinary hydro customers.  In early 2010, then Minister of Energy Brad Duguid issued a directive to the OPA (Ontario Power Authority) instructing them to create and deliver an “industrial energy efficiency program” specifically for large transmission connected (TX) ratepayers. That directive led to the creation of the two classes of ratepayers that now exist in Ontario. It's an appropriate time to revisit the topic because this past week Ontario's Minister of Energy was touting the electricity cost-saving opportunities for businesses that qualify for participation in a newly expanded ICI, because those savings come from shifting costs to other consumers. If you are unfamiliar with the topic the latest article may inspire you to learn more, I recommend some articles for doing so at the end of this short post. One statem...

"Realism never makes for a good copy, as long as there are people who make a living from selling a dream instead" Perhaps those that remain in the quagmire will speak of this one who got out. Maybe not.

There's an Ontario Energy Report (OER) that drips out quarterly. It's often got a mistake on the first page. Half of that page is static graphics. The other half is some simple data presented in big fonts. The report could be useful as it contains data that is difficult to find elsewhere. The intent when it started, as I understood it, was to bring data from multiple sources together in a coherent fashion.  I suspect it was supposed to be definitive - to avoid people getting information from rogue sources such as Parker Gallant and I. The official data would be a good thing if it were credible - but the first page often reveals it is not. This quarter the very first data set - the "Transmission Grid-Connected Generation Output (Q1)" -  has errors. Ontario's use of gas in generation electricity during the first quarter was very low. It was lower than it's been in over 50 years. But it wasn't this low.

Some numbers I've compiled for the most recent periods of Ontario electricity consumption. IESO weekly reports run from Wednesday to Tuesday - presumably because the market opened on Wednesday May 1st, 2002. 1  The week beginning on the 20th Wednesday of 2017, May 17-23, 2017, is the first one where the average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP), weighted to the system operator's "Ontario Demand", was negative. On average, it cost money to give away electricity

On my twitter feed this morning: "I'd like to hear from @ ScottLuft on this. "This" involved something about the value of wind, and what could be done to contain it.   I've written a lot on this in the past, and won't do so again here except to explain the graph that accompanies this post - which explains what can be done to increase the value of the 20-year contracts Ontario's thug Premier claims will have ongoing value. It also explains why wind won't, in the near future, be part of a near-zero emission electricity system anywhere not blessed with large hydro reservoirs. The graphic shows:

A new post at the Energy Institute at Hass blog, Is the Duck Sinking? , discusses the growing appearance of negative pricing in California: What do the negative prices tell us? At a fundamental level, they tell us that we have too much of a good and suppliers need to pay people to take it off their hands. Right now, California has too much renewable electricity. Emphasizing this point, a recent briefing from the California Independent System Operator [CAISO] noted that renewable “curtailments” were at record levels in March 2017 , amounting to over 80 GWh , which is more than a typical day’s worth of solar production that month. Is there anything to do about the negative prices? Negative prices certainly highlight the value of storage, where the basic idea is to buy low and sell high. Buying when prices are negative is especially lucrative... Another solution is to expose more retail consumers to wholesale prices, or find other ways to encourage customers to respond to real-time pri...

I am lucky to have Parker Gallant to push data summaries to - it is saving me a lot of writing lately! One thing I'll add: last Wednesday the Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) hit its 3rd highest level ever ($1711.03/MWh, or $1.71/kWh). The records may be altered as the IESO often reviews, and sometimes reduces, these price events - this one may explain their recent inability to produce daily reports. The Ontario Energy Board has a Market Surveillance Panel which investigates price spikes above $200/MWh. With a nuclear reactor shut down during the weekend of surplus still offline, hour 22 yesterday saw the HOEP spike to $281.25. Despite April having plenty of supply, and very low demand, last night's was the 5th $200+/MWh hour of the month, which is a record for April since market opening. The inability to produce reports may not be the system operator's most significant challenge.