Parker Gallant compares power output from wind and the cost to consumers between 2010 and 2016: we’re paying more for intermittent wind power, produced out-of-phase with demand

In 2010, industrial wind turbines (IWT) in Ontario represented total installed capacity of approximately 1,200 megawatts (MW); they generated 2.95 terawatt hours (TWh^*) of transmission (TX) and distributed (DX) connected electricity.  The power from wind cost Ontario’s ratepayers about $413 million for those 2.95 TWh, about 2.1% of total 2010 consumption.  The cost of IWT generation in 2010 was 3.1% of total generation costs (Global Adjustment [GA] + Hourly Ontario Energy Price [HOEP]) and represented 33.5% of “net exports”^** of electricity to our neighbours in Michigan, New York, and others.
Jump to 2016: wind turbines represented installed capacity of almost 4,500 MW, and generated and curtailed*** TX and DX connected electricity totaling 13.15 TWh.  The cost to Ontario’s ratepayers jumped to $1,894.3 million — about 12.2 % of total generation costs.  The 13.15 TWh of generation was 7.9% of Ontario’s total consumption but 94.9% of net exports.
The cost per kilowatt hour of electricity generated by wind in 2010 was 14 cents and in 2016 it had increased to 17.5 cents, despite downward adjustments to the contracted values between 2010 and 2016.   That cost doesn’t include the back-up costs of gas generation when the wind doesn’t blow and we need the power, nor does it include costs associated with spilled hydro or steamed off nuclear, but it does include the cost of curtailed wind, which was 2.33 TWh in 2016 and just shy of total wind generated electricity in 2010.
In the seven years from 2010 to 2016, Ontario’s electricity ratepayers picked up total costs of $7.746 billion for 56.9 TWh of grid-accepted and curtailed (4.9 TWh) wind-generated electricity.   The actual value given to those 56.9 TWh by the HOEP market was just shy of $570 million meaning ratepayers were forced to pick up the difference of $7.166 billion for power that wasn’t needed.  The foregoing is based on the fact we have continually exported our surplus generation since the passing of the Green Energy Act and contracted for IWT generation at above market prices.
During those same seven years, Ontario had “net exports” of 85.95 TWh while curtailing wind, spilling hydro and steaming off nuclear. And, at the same time, we were contracting for gas plant generators that are now only occasionally called on to generate electricity yet are paid considerable dollars for simply idling!
Refinancing wind payments
As noted above the cost of wind generation in 2016 was almost $1.9 billion and represented 15.3% of the Global Adjustment pot. That cost was close to what was inferred in an Energy Ministry press release headlined: “Refinancing the Global Adjustment” but suggesting it was taxpayer owned “infrastructure”:  “To relieve the current burden on ratepayers and share costs more fairly, a portion of the GA is being refinanced. Refinancing the GA would provide significant and immediate rate relief by spreading the cost of electricity investments over the expected lifecycle of the infrastructure that has been built.”
What’s really being refinanced is a portion of the guaranteed payments to the wind and solar developers who were contracted at above market rates! So, what is being touted as a 25% reduction includes the 8% provincial portion of the HST and a portion of annual payments being made to wind and solar developers for their intermittent (and unreliable) power.
Premier Wynne’s shell game continues!
Parker Gallant,
May 22, 2017
Note: Special thanks to Scott Luft for his recent chart outlining the data enabling the writer to complete the math associated with this Liberal shell game!
 
*    One  TWh equals 1 million MWh and the average household in Ontario reputedly consumes 9 MWh annually, meaning 1 TWh could power 111,000 average household for one year.
**   Net exports are total exports less total imports.
*** Ontario commenced paying for “curtailed” wind generation in September 2013.
 Re-posed from Parker Gallant’s Energy Perspectives