January 12, 2022
Although Ottawa City councillors are saying that the City is not planning wind turbines, is not looking for locations to site turbines, and is not talking to developers, a look at various City documents would persuade you otherwise.
For example, several illustrations that are used for City newsletters and pages on its website clearly depict wind turbines as does, for example, the graphic that accompanies the Energy Evolution strategy document (see above).
And then there is the little matter of the Official Plan Open House virtual presentation held back in June last year in which Manager of Planning Policy Alain Miguelez declared that Ottawa was going to be incorporating renewable energy including wind turbines which would be “directed” he said to Ottawa’s rural areas.
When a citizen participant voiced concern at that event, he responded, “The energy [we need] has to come from somewhere.”
Somewhere indeed.
Almost a year ago, a City staff manager wrote to the Ontario Energy Board as followup to consultation on Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and objected to the fact that the OEB consultant had not mentioned wind power.
“The DER mandate should include all forms of zero-emission DER’s [sic] including wind and hydropower. The ICF paper only discussed solar and battery storage,” Mike Fletcher, Project Manager Climate Change and Resiliency wrote in his letter of February 21, 2021.
“Ottawa has vast rural areas and Energy Evolution requires that we consider wind and hydropower opportunities to meet our renewable energy generation targets,” he said. (Note he said targets, not “models” as is now being claimed.)
So, which is it? Ottawa is not at all considering unreliable, intermittent wind power—which is completely inappropriate in low-wind Eastern Ontario as evidenced by recent poor performance during a cold snap—or, wind power is a key component in the City’s renewable energy plans?
The citizens of Ottawa’s rural areas deserve to know.
ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com
Ottawa Wind Concerns 
Pingback: City documents still say YES to wind turbines | ajmarciniak
Call it models, call it targets, call it whatever politically correct word you like but here is the reality.
This morning I left at 1am and saw -31 on the dash at 4am. The entire province of thousands of wind turbines were generating around 600 megawatts. That’s all, barely enough to cover their own consumption.
Going up and down like the wind,,,,,ha ha!
The power grid demand was over 20,000 megawatts and climbing due to the severe cold.
The windmill backup gas plants were getting pushed to over 5,000 megawatts.
Many rural areas experienced short term blackouts.
The Kathleen Wynne Liberal government decided to demolish the Nantikoke 3000 megawatt emergency backup power generating station, along with many others, and install a 40 megawatt solar farm that only works on nice sunny days when there is no snow on the panels.
Made for wonderful dreamy photo ops at the time!
From my point of view more wind turbines equates to less power.
Stan the power man
Hey, check this out!
The IESO has been directed by the appointed minister to renew the upgrades to the contracts for the Lennox generatng station, just south of Napanee, until 2029. This is good news for eastern Ontario simply because that station can ramp up quickly when the Amherst Island, Wolfe Island and Chrysler windfarms all go down, sometimes within minutes of each other.
The Lennox station can feed in an easy 2000 megawatts to the inter-tie switchyard just north of the station and be directed as needed.
Why do I like this common sense decision?
It is really simple,,,,I,,,,and many others, need to operate from backup generators when the unreliable turbines crap out or ice over or fly apart or whatever and I would much rather pay my hydro bill then refuel and maintain my own backup gas generator.
Once in awhile our government officials do something totally unexpected!
Amazing!
Stan