Cold Air from Wordpress

I saw a tweet the other day that seemed like the Ontario Energy Industry would be addressing an issue of interest to me: #ELECTRICITY RATES: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Join us as Vince Brescia presents findings by the #OEA & @IFSD_IFPD on how to reduce rates by 12%. This research will be useful for Ontarians to consider as we grapple with this challenge ahead. More info: https://t.co/G9wNyYL0UI pic.twitter.com/PqpmWR08aK — Ontario Energy Association (OEA) (@energyontario) April 23, 2020 Turns out it was a lot less interesting than I thought. My quick scan of the OEA's "Help those who need help" paper finds little I agree with presented from a perspective that is foreign to me - and yet I agree with the action option they steer people to agree with: OPTION 3: PHASE OUT ELECTRICITY COST REFINANCING SUBSIDIES This option is the lowest cost option for provincial taxpayers. It would see bills remain stable, increasing by about 1.5% more than inflation each year until s...

The Ontario Energy Board's Market Surveillance Panel (MSP) released a report on December 19th which attracted some attention: "Over the 11- month period in question, the estimated impact on the HOEP and transmission loss uplift combined could have ranged as high as between $450 million to $560 million, although a simulation accounting for additional potential variables could yield lower estimates." Some big numbers, but upon investigating I initially generated a thread on Twitter which concluded, "the impact of this mostly-grey money forensic investigation is an imperceptible lessening of the cost shift from class B to class A consumers." My position was supported when the system operator (IESO) responded to the MSP report:" IESO analysis shows a net market impact across all customer groups of less than $10 million." And that's sort of the end of that hysteria, but since I looked I can't shake the feeling something is very wrong with the ana...

An interim report is out from National Grid on the "Low Frequency Demand Disconnection" (LFDD) experienced in the UK on August 8th. There were a number of contributors to the LFDD. Instead of looking for a single culprit it would be better to list the contributors, because it's the interaction that resulted in the event. I'll review the failures in the UK to highlight a recent report from Ontario's system operator (IESO) that has received too little attention. Many suspected wind as the primary factor on August 9th, and the Hornsea offshore wind facility was heavily involved. So far that involvement has simply been identified as its failure to ride through a voltage dip caused by a lightening strike to transmission wires elsewhere. From a useful infographic accompanying the report: "There was a lightning strike on a transmission circuit north of London ..." "There was a small loss of embedded generation (c.500MW) due to the lightning strike. ...

Today the government of Canada approved a pipeline, which some see as contrasting with it declaring a climate emergency yesterday. To assuage the concern the government has promised to do blindingly good things with profits from the pipeline, including promising "every dollar the federal government earns from this project will be invested in Canada’s clean energy transition," and launching, "the next phase of engagement with Indigenous groups on ways they could share in the benefits of the expansion, including through equity ownership or revenue sharing." When the Prime Minister was elected he brought two veterans of Ontario's Liberal government to Ottawa as his top advisors, so this seems an opportune time to examine one "clean energy" initiative geared to invest in Aboriginal communities. The $2.6 billion expansion on hydroelectric generating stations on the Lower Mattagami river. Ontario's nominally public generator says of a hydro project comp...

I saw an opportunity for presenting Ontario electricity data in trying out the free public version of the Tab|eau business intelligence tool. I'm not sure I have the patience, or the smarts, to learn how to do all I've learned with Microsoft's Power BI, but maybe I should. I'm astonished with the power of this map in filtering the data table! (afraid the attempt at embedding on wordpress was a failure - but the link works!)   https://public.tableau.com/views/MonthlyGeneration/Story1?:embed=y&:display_count=yes

A quick post with commentary on a graphic. I've been writing little but learning more recently. I've written multiple times on the inability of Ontario to fully utilize its water rights on the Niagara river, so that's some data that I looked to learn some new data connections and summary techniques. Having advanced to where I can easily update to the latest available data I thought I'd share this view summarizing it - and offer some brief comments explaining the significance.

Ontario's Industrial Conservation Initiative program, which rewards large "Class A" consumers for lower consumption during periods of high demand from the system operator's supplier, cost others $1.27 billion in past 12 months. I won't review the history of the program today as I did 3 years ago in  "Stakeholders" destroying the viability of Ontario's electricity market , but I will note that since last March a Variance Account under the [un]Fair Hydro Plan - which shifts costs from ratepayers today to rubes sometime in the future - a debt of $1.2 billion accumulated with April's total still to be posted. Today the system operator (IESO)  posted the top 5 peak hours for the adjustment period that ended April 30th, 2018 (it started May 1, 2017) - and Monday the IESO posted the final Global Adjustment figures for April. This post will contain: a quick demonstration of cost shift calculations, review of the ICI value proposition, and another ...