News story today claims Ontario wants mostly (unreliable, intermittent) wind power in new procurement.

In a story published today, CBC News claims that the Ontario government has done a “U-turn” on its policy for renewable energy and now plans 5,000 megawatts of wind and solar via a new procurement initiative.

The Independent Electricity System Operator or IESO will launch its LT2-RFP sometime this year, which will attract proposals for an energy mix. It will not be technology-specific.

The CBC story claims that the Ford government “tore up” contracts for power from renewable generators in 2018. This is correct but not for the reasons stated: the contracts were for above-market prices and at the time, the power was not needed. The act to cancel the high priced contracts actually saved money for taxpayers.

But that’s not the renewables lobby narrative, which is clearly the basis for this story.

Inexplicably, the Melancthon wind power project is proffered as an example of a successful wind power site.

“Mayor Darren White says many of the fears that were raised in the early 2000s about the impact of wind farms on people’s lives never came to pass.”

This is quite untrue—for years the Melancthon site was number one for noise complaints. In 2011, the Mayor of Amaranth wrote to the McGuinty government, begging them not to inflict any more wind turbines on people living in the area, due to impacts on health and wealth. (The government approved one more project after that, despite his plea.) 

White does acknowledge problems with process:

“Melancthon council is currently on record as unwilling to host any more wind projects. White says that could change if a company comes forward with a proposal that would be good for the community. 

‘We’re not going to pass a resolution [supporting a wind project] just on a back-of-a-napkin drawing,” said White. “We want to see your plan. We want to see the locations, we want to see what the infrastructure is. We want to see what the benefits to the community are going to be. So don’t come to me and ask for a resolution before you’ve done your homework.’ ” 

The Canadian Renewable Energy Association or CanREA (formerly CanWEA) claims Ontario residents are in favour of wind turbines:

“Communities know what these projects are. They understand the benefits to the communities and they understand the revenues that accrue to land owners.”

Wind Concerns Ontario, however, says it’s not 2009 anymore and people are well aware of problems such as noise.

“Jane Wilson, president of Wind Concerns Ontario, a volunteer-led advocacy group, says ‘We’d like to see more of the existing problems addressed and resolved before we go forward and contract with more wind power sites.’ However, Wilson says the government’s commitment not to impose projects on unwilling communities marks a ‘big difference’ from how things proceeded under the McGuinty Liberals.”

The CanREA spokesperson said that the price for wind and solar has come down. However, the draft contract information being developed by the IESO seems to pay the wind power operators for estimates of power that could be produced, not actual power generated, for market price at the time.

That sounds like a subsidy to us.

Among the comments after the CBC story, energy commentator Chris Adlam had this to say in a post on “X”:

“I think it’s important to keep in mind that giving these sources the opportunity to bid in a competitive process does not mean we’ll necessarily end up with more capacity of a given type. The province could benefit from more commercial solar, procured at low cost (so, not residential rooftop) to depress daytime peaking gas use during the summer months, but this is of effectively no utility during the winter.

The province will not benefit from more wind capacity, which is reflected in the market value of existing wind power, which is less than $0.02/kWh, a price at which nobody will build it, which is why uptake stopped when the GEA was cancelled. Wind has a Capacity Value that approaches zero in Ontario, producing grossly out of phase with demand.

The existing wind contracts were lucrative, with an average price of $147/MWh (currently), indexed to inflation, with first to grid rights and compensation for curtailment; payment for “potential” kWh that were rejected due to low demand conditions, which are typical when wind is at its most productive.”

WIND CONCERNS ONTARIO

contact@windconcernsontario.ca