As
the Ontario government’s $1-billion gas plant relocation scandal slips
into history, the province’s electricity ratepayers should not assume
that the era of big-ticket rate-boosting power projects of questionable
value is a thing of the past. Now comes the “Smart Grid” and a host of
other projects.
Promptly at 3 p.m. Tuesday the Auditor General of Ontario, Bonnie Lysyk,
confirmed the bad news many anticipated — she told the ratepayers of
Ontario that they will pay somewhere between $675-million and
$1.1-billion for the move of a power plant that saved a Liberal seat in
Oakville.
Combining the costs of the Mississauga gas plant move with the
Oakville move places the total costs of the two moves at the
$1.5-billion level.
Continue reading.
Smart Grid is the new fad taking over power industry policy
everywhere — it’s a flexible concept that gives utilities, contractors
and governments room to justify ratepayer spending on “Smart Meters,”
electric cars, power line automation and the new hot idea of electricity
storage.
None of these ideas comes cheap, including pumped electricity
storage, a plan making its way through the province’s electric
industrial complex. Pumped storage was traditionally used where excess
low-cost electricity was available during low-usage periods. The
economic logic was that cheap excess power justified the cost of
recapturing a portion of the excess for later use.
Ontario Power Generation operates a pumped storage facility near
Niagara, built when Ontario anticipated excess nuclear production.
Although it wastes one unit of electricity for each unit finally
delivered, the storage system reserves some of the nightly water flow
over Niagara for daytime use. This time-shifting optimizes power
production by the main generators, while maintaining the scenic daytime
water flow over Niagara Falls as required under international agreement.
If this were stand-alone pumped storage, ratepayers would fare better
with it closed.
But a new pumped storage proposal is under active deliberation around
the eastern Ontario village of Marmora. The proposal comes from
Northland Power for a stand-alone, 400-megawatt pumped storage facility
at the abandoned Marmoraton Mine, on property owned by Aecon
Construction. Project cost: Somewhere between $660-million and
$700-million.
The Marmora project was endorsed by local council members without
public notice. With local people in the dark, Northland Power announced
it was “very excited to have the support of the people of Marmora.”
The design envisions the former iron ore mine pit becoming the lower
reservoir, once most of its existing, spring-fed lake is pumped into an
adjacent upper reservoir. The elevated man-made lake would loom above
substantial portions of urban Marmora. When Ontario’s grid has excess
power, the operator would pump water up from the lower reservoir. During
high demand periods, if the upper reservoir is full and water had not
filled the lower reservoir, the elevated water could be dropped through
reversible turbines.
Advocates
for electricity storage schemes have a new sales pitch. They are needed
to offset the unreliability of wind and solar power. In Ontario’s
electricity business environment, where cost is no object, adding more
unreliable wind and solar creates a need for more storage to support
grid reliability.
Recognizing that perverse synergy, the annual conference of the
Canadian Wind Energy Association in Toronto this week is twinned with
one promoting electricity storage. For Northland Power, also a major
wind and solar developer in Ontario, this synergy is a core business
strategy.
For ratepayers, none of this is working. Wind and solar are not just
unreliable. Ratepayers pay unaffordable prices for their chaotic output.
Adding the cost of storage puts ratepayers in double jeopardy.
In 2006, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA), the government’s
electricity planner, considered pumped storage and its alternatives in
detail, concluding that they were not justified. Last August the OPA
issued an updated cautionary statement on storage, warning the Ontario
Energy Board to “focus on fact-based applications of energy storage and
not on perceptions.”
The political parties are jockeying for position. The Conservative
MPP for the Marmora area, Todd Smith, has his party demanding “the
Minister of Energy explain why his Ministry has delayed in arriving at a
contract to produce power for the proposed Marmora Pumped Storage
project.” Smith has just been promoted by party leader Tim Hudak.
The Liberals, perhaps aware of their falling status as stewards of
the energy file, are balking. In mid September, Energy Minister
Chiarelli warned that the capital cost of the project is “quite high”
while “many of the benefits…can be provided at lower cost by
existing…generators.” He said a cautious approach is needed to “protect
ratepayers.”
When Ontario PCs issued their policy discussion paper on energy in
May last year, they said the “Government must get back to its proper,
limited role.” Now, their political energy is pumping in the opposite
direction.
Tom Adams is a Toronto-based energy consultant. Kathy Hamilton is a Marmora homeowner.
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Kathy Hamilton has left a new comment on your post "Financial Post (!) exposes Marmora power boondoggl...":
I can't possibly express sufficient gratitude to the editors of the Financial Post, for publishing not only this piece but that precious reader feedback following it online, showing majority "negative" comments about Northland Power's proposal.
What remains unknown is when and how badly the far more sordid story that continues playing out in Marmora will end. I could never have told that one as clearly as the so-called "Marmora Pumped Storage Project" page on the municipality's site has been showing it to the whole world since it first appeared.
Please take time to meet and give your thanks to co-author extraordinaire Tom Adams, one of the most highly principled men I've had the honour and pleasure of knowing:
http://www.tomadamsenergy.com/2013/10/10/smart-grid-part-1-ontarios-next-energy-project/
Posted by Kathy Hamilton to Riffs & Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens at 14 October 2013 02:28
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