Imagine having to leave your home to protect your health. Leadership is needed, now. Green Bay Press-Gazette editorial board statement, January 30, 2016 The most unsettling aspect of the wind turbine debate is…

Imagine having to leave your home to protect your health. Leadership is needed, now. Green Bay Press-Gazette editorial board statement, January 30, 2016 The most unsettling aspect of the wind turbine debate is…
Wind can’t compete, which is why the corporate developer lobby wants policies shifted to favour its interest Lethbridge Herald, January 30, 2016 In his letter “Correcting wind energy errors,” Lethbridge Herald, Jan. 23,…
January 29, 2016 In the paper published this past week in the journal, Nature Energy, authors Fast et al. reviewed the policy behind the Ontario government’s push toward industrial-scale or utility-scale wind power,…
Galloping Global Adjustment As noted in the previous posting, over the past eight years (2007 to 2015) Ontario electricity ratepayers have seen the charge for the basic commodity increase by $6 billion dollars…
[Photo Clarkson University] Understanding the Varying Impacts of Cross-Border Wind Development Wind power is among the fastest growing energy sources in the world today, and is widely viewed as a substantial part of…
Here is a letter to the Editor of the Lethbridge Herald. It seems people in Canada’s western provinces had an eye on the Ontario disaster, and the real situation in Europe. Wind power…
Could it be, from his statement yesterday, Ontario Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli has resolved his ministry’s issues in dealing with the many rural communities in Ontario declaring themselves “Not a willing host” to…
In spite of a move by the proponents’ lawyer to block testimony by expert witnesses called by the appellant, the Association to Protect Amherst Island, and further to disallow testimony of 30 residents…
First Nation has not endorsed proposed wind power project in Dutton Dunwich Simcoe Reformer, January 26, 2016 The Municipality of Dutton-Dunwich is campaigning against the Wynne government’s plan this year to invite applications…
“Germany now building gas- and coal-fired facilities to mask the catastrophe” Investment Executive, January 2016 Converting the grid to solar and wind power will create more problems than it solves in Alberta, as…
Parker Gallant maps power price increases under the Ontario Liberal government
Back in February 2011, IESO announced in their publication the Electricity Insider that a line item on some electricity bills would be changed. The message was: “For all consumers that pay for electricity on market prices or who have signed a retail contract, the line item Provincial Benefit on your electricity bill will be renamed Global Adjustment starting in 2011.”
For those who relied on their local distribution company to bill them, the term “Provincial Benefit” or “Global Adjustment” never appeared on their bill. It was hidden in the “electricity” line!
Presumably as a result of the change someone at IESO went back to 2007 and changed all the monthly summary reports to read Global Adjustment rather than “Provincial Benefit”. Since then the term Global Adjustment has gained a certain infamy, commencing with the 2011 Auditor General’s report, the December 9, 2014 report and again in the December 2, 2015 report.
In 2007, the first year the GA term first appears in IESO’s annual consumption reports, one notes Ontario’s consumption was 152 terawatts (TWh). The GA was $3.95 per MWh and the HOEP (Hourly Ontario Energy Price) or market price was $50.51 bringing the average cost for the raw commodity; electricity, to $54.46/MWh or 5.4 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for the year. That means the cost of the raw electricity consumed was about (152 TWh X $54,460,000/TWh = $8.27 billion) $8.3 billion. Another $300 million was required to cover the cost of 5.1 TWh of imports and 12.3 TWh of exports (5.1 TWh X $50.51 million/TWh + 12.3 TWh X $3.95million/TWh = $$306 million) making the all-in costs of the commodity $8.6 billion.
Electricity used to be cheap
What that means is, even though the Liberal government had been in power for four years, the price of generating electricity was relatively cheap, increasing at a rate of about 3% annually from $47.82/MWh in 2003 to $54.46/MWh in 2007. While the increase came in higher than inflation, ratepayers were told repairing the system because of its reputed neglect under the previous government was the reason.
Fast forward to 2015 and see what the next eight years under the Liberal government brought ratepayers for the raw commodity’s cost, in comparison to the first four years.