Boondoggle: How Ontario’s pursuit of renewables broke their electricity system
Financial Post, Terence Corcoran
The Green industry has done over Ontario consumers. Government control of the electricity market was “cheered on by a growing industrial complex of wind and solar promoters backed by a large contingent of financial firms, big name consultants, fee-collecting law firms and major corporations. All were anxious to play a lucrative role fulfilling renewables objectives”.
Ontario was going to be the North American leader in renewable energy. It would save lives, create jobs, cost nothing, but instead the electricity bills have doubled, no lives were saved and the only jobs created were temporary (and almost certainly cost more jobs in other areas due to high electricity costs). The only “success” for the extra wind and solar power that’s locked into the grid is that it has “saved” some meaningless CO2 emissions at the exorbitant, flagrant cost of $250 per ton. Green energy was supposed to save $4.4billion in healthcare and other costs, but virtually none of that materialized.
Costs have gone from 5.5c a KWh in 2006 to 11c KWh in 2016. (How is it still so incredibly cheap ask Aussies? We are the largest coal exporters in the world and have some of the largest uranium reserves but Australians pay from 25c to 36c per KWh* and the currencies are 1:1).
According to Terence Corcoran things are so on the nose that the premier can’t even mention hydro without getting booed. The costs of going green have been estimated at $170 billion over 30 years, and while smog has decreased somewhat, no one is sure whether that was due to the coal stations closing in Ontario, or is linked to US changes. In any case, the coal plants could have been fitted with smog-cleaning gear for a tiny fraction of the cost.
The Ontario government has finally started canceling new wind projects, but there are long term contracts for current wind farms that go on for years. Jan Carr was head of the Ontario Power Authority and says the government is “finally waking up to Ontario’s electricity carnage.”
Ontario’s Society of Professional Engineers has issued many reports describing how dismal the green policies are, but the Premier’s office appear to have been fooled completely by the Green machine. A former head of the OSPE, Paul Acchione, says “because they know how to turn a light bulb on and off, they’ll issue policy statements on the most complex engineering system on the planet”. He said the Premier’s office was pretty much running the grid and “hiring political scientists and environmentalists because they thought they were the experts”. (Does Australia have an OSPE equivalent, wonders Jo?)
But demand for electricity has cratered as the prearranged contracts for green energy have surged, and Canadians are paying for expensive electricity that comes at the wrong time of day and isn’t needed.
In a normal market when supply outstrips demand, prices are supposed to fall. But put a government in charge and the most expensive provider can get a guarantee to get paid, even if their product isn’t needed.
A bunch of parasites fooled the Premier and they are getting rich by selling expensive electrons that are supposed to change the weather 50 years from now.
h/t to Clipe, Pat and David B.
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*Australia retail prices. For cost estimates read AMEC’s 2015 report. Each State is listed in the summary pages viii to xii, “In 2014/15, a representative consumer [in WA] using 5,229 kWh per year paid the government-set price and had an annual bill of $1,319 exclusive of GST. ” “In 2014/15, a representative consumer [in SA] on the representative standing offer using 5,000 kWh per year had a total annual bill of $1,811 exclusive of GST.”