Category Archives: Ottawa

North Gower plans to be “Not a Willing Host”

16 Wednesday Oct 2013

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When Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne held her first interviews after being elected the Ontario Liberal Party leader, and thus, Premier, she was asked about the controversy over wind power projects in Ontario. She said, her government would not be forcing the power projects on communities that were not “willing hosts.”

Today, 72 Ontario municipalities have declared themselves to be “Not a Willing Host” ( see windconcernsontario.ca Not a Willing Host tab for the list of communities).

North Gower is not a legal municipality since amalgamation with the City of Ottawa, but residents plan to be declared Not a Willing Host by using a legal petition to the City of Ottawa.

“This petition is a legal document, signed and witnessed by members of our community,” says Ottawa Wind Concerns chair Jane Wilson. “We will take this petition to the City of Ottawa and make sure the City overall knows that there is no support here for a wind power generation utility so close to homes, and our school.”

Wilson notes that Ontario often has a surplus of power and has sold excess for a loss to neighbouring jurisdictions such as Michigan or New York State, and that the Ontario government recently announced it is paying wind power companies NOT to add power to the grid. “So why build another one?” she asks. “Why subject yet another Ontario community to the dramatic impact of a wind power project it it’s not even needed?”

The proposed 20-megawatt wind power project will be within 3.5 km of more than 1,000 homes, Wilson explained. A conservative estimate of the average property value loss is over $130 million.

MPP Lisa MacLeod, now energy critic for the opposition has often spoken against the wind power project; MP Pierre Poilievre has said it makes no sense financially, and commissioned a Library of Parliament study to show that subsidies for the project from Ontario taxpayers would be about $4.8 million per year.

The petition-signing debut for North Gower residents is Saturday October 26th at 10 a.m. at the Alfred Taylor Centre on Community Way. Special guest Parker Gallant, frequent contributor to the Financial Post series “Ontario’s Power Trip,” will deliver a presentation “What’s in your electricity bill?” by videolink at the event.

Residents who are unable to attend will be able to sign the petition when volunteer canvassers come to their door, or on a special “voting day” at the Alfred Taylor Centre on Saturday November 9 from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.

For more information, email Ottawa Wind Concerns at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

Rex Murphy on “duplicitous Dalton”

13 Sunday Oct 2013

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From the weekend edition of The National Post, Rex Murphy‘s summary of Duplicitous Dalton and the havoc wreaked up Ontario taxpayers. Who pays for all this “venality” Murphy asks: “the honest pockets of carpenters in North bay and teaching assistants and snow plow operators and store clerks and seniors…”
The horrible truth is, Ontarians are continuing to pay for the disastrous McGuinty energy policies as approvals of giant wind power projects continues, and subsidies are doled out by the million each week.

Wonder how Ottawa South voters are feeling about John Fraser this week…

Rex Murphy: Duplicitous Dalton, Inc.

Rex Murphy | 12/10/13 | Last Updated: 11/10/13 1:58 PM ET
More from Rex Murphy
Where is McGuinty now that the full cost of his expediency is known? Harvard, of course, disappeared like a member of some witness protection program for the well-connected.

Peter J. Thompson/National Post Where is McGuinty now that the full cost of his expediency is known? Harvard, of course, disappeared like a member of some witness protection program for the well-connected.
 

The Auditor-General of Ontario has released her report on the provincial Liberal government’s brazenly political decision to cancel two gas-fired power plants. Her estimate of the ultimate cost: about $1.1-billion, potentially reaching $1.5-billion. This obscenity of mismanagement and prevarication came out of Duplicitous Dalton, Inc., a.k.a. the McGuinty government, an administration we now know was, politically, so venal as to toss perhaps as much as a billion and a half taxpayer dollars into the devouring — but politically favourable — wind.

Kelly McParland: Here lies the wreckage of Dalton McGuinty’s self-serving gas plant decisions

In contemplating the disastrous consequences of the Ontario government’s two arbitrary gas plant closures, it does well to remember the performance put on by then-premier Dalton McGuinty before his abrupt resignation.
Never hesitant to play the Boy Scout, the premier prorogued the legislature rather than face questions about the gas plants, and then piously sought to blame the opposition for his troubles.
“I prorogued because the place was becoming overheated,” Mr. McGuinty insisted, citing a “spurious, phoney” suggestion that his energy minister had been in contempt of the legislature for failing to produce documents related to the scandal.

D.D., Inc. even had the brass to insist, originally, that the cost to cancel just the Oakville, Ont., plant was only $40-million. The Auditor-General this week, after a cautionary distribution of Gravol tablets to the assembled press, offered a more altitudinous range of $675-million to $810-million — 15 to 20 times as much! And from the very beginning of the noxious affair, to any question the Liberal response was delay, obfuscate, stone-wall, delete emails, deny said deletions, miraculously locate the not-so-deleted emails, and, of course, insult and hector any and all critics.
Let there be no more “used car salesmen” jokes about political leaders. Used car salesmen are pillars of candour and conscience compared to this lot.
They knew $40-million was a joke estimate from the moment they scrambled to “buy” the votes by scrapping the plant — in other words, from the moment they chose to buy a couple of ridings by ripping up contracts, costs be damned.

Read the whole article here.

The Auditor General’s report on gas plants: a summary

09 Wednesday Oct 2013

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Here from Ottawa economist Bob Lyman, who specializes in energy issues, is what you need to know about the Auditor General’s report, and why the losses mounted up to over $1 billion for both the Oakville and Mississauga gas plants.

ONTARIO AUDITOR GENERAL’S REPORT  ON OAKVILLE POWER PLANT CANCELLATION COSTS:  SUMMARY AND BRIEF COMMENTARY

Introduction

On October 8, 2013, Bonnie Lysyk, Auditor General of Ontario, released a Special Report on the costs that have been incurred and are likely to be incurred by the public as a result of the cancellation of a natural gas-fired electricity generation plant in Oakville Ontario. In the period leading up to a provincial election, the Liberal government announced the cancellation of this plant on October 7, 2010. As a result of the cancellation, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) was required to negotiate arrangements for the construction of alternative power generation facilities in Napanee, Ontario. Thus, the objective of the Auditor General Office’s review was to determine the costs of both the cancellation of the Oakville plant and the relocation of the power generation facilities to Napanee.

Background

The need for a natural gas electricity generation plant in the Southwest Greater Toronto Area was first identified by the OPA in its 2007 Integrated Power System Plan. In response to the plan, the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure directed the OPA in 2008 to procure a combined–cycle natural gas generation facility in the area with a capacity of up to 850 megawatts (MWs), to begin operating no later than December 31, 2013.

In September, 2009, the OPA awarded a contract to TransCanada Energy Ltd. (TCE) to build the facility in Oakville. There followed significant local opposition from groups in the Oakville area, including the Town of Oakville. The government cancelled the project. Soon after, OPA and TCE began to negotiate a settlement on a replacement project. TCE had already incurred significant costs and was facing the loss of revenues it would have received if the original contract had been honoured. The negotiations were difficult. The Premier’s Office intervened, without consulting OPA, to assure TCE that it would be compensated for the financial value of its contract for the Oakville plant. The Minister of Energy instructed OPA to contract with TCE to build a new plant in Napanee. Finally, the Province and OPA agreed to an arbitration framework (for determining damages to be paid to TCE if no settlement was reached) that favoured TCE and waived the protections that OPA had under the original Oakville contract. In December, a deal was reached to relocate the plant to Napanee.

Cancellation Costs

 The Special Report lists two types of costs that resulted from the plant cancellation -the costs already incurred and the estimated future costs.

The costs already incurred include reimbursing TCE for its initial purchases of gas turbines for the Oakville plant and the modifications made to them ($210 million), sunk operating costs relating to the Oakville plant ($40 million) and legal fees ($3 million).

The estimated future costs essentially relate to the cost of constructing the Napanee plant, of increased gas connections to get natural gas to the Napanee plant, the costs of new gas pipelines to move gas to Napanee and new electricity lines to move electricity from Napanee to the GTA, the penalty associated with the use of less efficient gas turbines, and the cost of replacement power to make up for the non-availability of the Oakville plant’s power for some time. The Auditor General’s Office estimates these costs to be $859 million.

The total costs incurred plus estimated future costs are thus $1,112 million (i.e. $1.1 billion).

Estimated Future Savings

 In return for taking on a portion of the costs that TCE would have incurred, OPA was able to negotiate a lower price for the power from the Napanee plant than it would have had to pay for the power from the Oakville plant. This results in an expected savings of $275 million. There is also a delay in the commencement of payments to TCE compared to what would have occurred under the Oakville contract because the Napanee plant will come into operation later. The OPA and Auditor General disagree on both the dates when the Oakville plant would have come into operation and when the Napanee plant will come into production. As a result of these disagreements, the Auditor General estimates the present value of the savings to be $162 million, and OPA estimates it to be $539 million.

Using the Auditor General’s figures, the net cost to the public will be $675 million.

Impact of Potential Toll Increase

 TCE’s parent company will also benefit from the fact that under the Napanee agreement a section of the pipeline route owned by TransCanada Pipelines Limited (TCPL) effectively must be used to transport gas to Napanee. This section does not now have the capacity to transport the amount of gas that will be needed by the Napanee plant. Accordingly, TCPL will need to make additional capital investments and recover these costs through increased toll charges, which will get passed on to electricity ratepayers. Tolls could increase by up to 50% in the first three years; if so, over the 20-year term of the contract for the Napanee plant, the cost of gas delivery would increase by $140 million.

Special Observations

The Special Report makes some observations that raise concerns about the way the Ontario government managed this issue.

  • Throughout the initial procurement process for the Oakville plant, including prior to the awarding the contract to TCE in September 2009, OPA provided the government with “off ramps” not to proceed. Despite the public controversy and the firm opposition of the Town of Oakville, the government declined to take any of these off ramps.
  • The contract for the Oakville plant contained protection to relieve both TCE and OPA of any financial obligation if events beyond their control (force majeure events) caused the plant’s commercial operation date to be delayed by more than 24 months. Given Oakville’s strong opposition to the plant, including Oakville’s stated intention to fight the matter all the way to the Supreme Court of necessary, it may well have been possible for the OPA to wait it out, with no penalty and at no cost. In other words, if the Premier’s Office had not intervened to guarantee TCE compensation, there might have been no cost to the Crown.
  • The Minister of Energy agreed to locate the new plant in Napanee, hundreds of miles from the market for the power, and with no consideration of the potential opposition of people in Napanee.

I would also observe that the need for additional natural gas generating plants is closely linked with the Ontario government’s commitment to add significant additional generating capacity from “green” energy sources, mainly wind turbines and solar power equipment. These intermittent sources of power require much more conventional energy sources to back them up for periods when they produce little or no electricity.

In reality, Ontario already has significant surplus electrical generating capacity, a situation that seems likely to continue until 2018 at the earliest. The problem seems to be one that is entirely of the government’s own making.

Robert Lyman

Ottawa

Parker Gallant: are Ontario’s electricity bills a regressive tax?

07 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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On September 10, 2013, when the temperature hit 34 degrees in Toronto, demand for electricity in Ontario peaked at 8 PM when we were consuming 22,417 megawatts (MW) of power.  At that point according to the Adequacy Report from the IESO, we still had excess capacity−8,437 MW in fact, or enough to power over seven million average Ontario homes.

So the question becomes, if we have power to spare, why do we continue to add expensive sources of power generation like wind and solar to the electricity grid?   Surely the addition of that expensive generation that must be backed up will do nothing more than drive electricity prices up.
Has our electricity system turned into nothing more than a form of wealth transfer or, perhaps, a regressive tax?   The latter is defined as: “A tax that takes a larger percentage from low-income people than from high-income people. A regressive tax is generally a tax that is applied uniformly. This means that it hits lower-income individuals harder.”
As it turns out, the management of our electricity system by the Liberal government during the past 10 years has been both.   Consider the following points and see if any of them were meant to keep our electricity prices competitive with other markets, and that might have helped to create jobs in Ontario. Job creation may have resulted in tax revenue that could have been use to reduce our deficit, improve health care, built better transit, or provide better government services.
Reality in Ontario today
Here is what ratepayers must accept:
§     Paying for smart meters and resulting time-of-use pricing–we eat supper after 7 PM and do our laundry in the middle of the night
§     Paying to replace smart meters because they “don’t communicate”
§     Paying for the development of the “smart grid” which turns out to be not so smart.
§     Subsidizing very large energy consumers by picking up a chunk ($200/400 million) of what they would have to pay if they were a household, just to keep remaining manufacturing jobs
§     Paying huge Net Revenue payments to gas plant electricity generators for sitting idle
§     Paying wind generators to not produce electricity
§     Paying solar generators to not produce electricity
§     Paying to erect meteorological stations to measure how much wind generators might have produced so that we can pay them for not producing
§     Paying for “steaming off” perfectly clean nuclear power from Bruce Power
§     Paying for the Ontario Power Authority to run ads on TV, radio and the newspapers to tell us to conserve electricity, racking up average annual spending of $300 million
§     Paying for costs of operating the Ontario Power Authority, which we were told was a temporary long-term planning agency
§     Paying to get the local distribution company to pick up old refrigerators and being told it’s free
§     Paying to move two gas generation plants at a cost of about $1 billion
§     Paying to have the school boards in Toronto and elsewhere put solar panels on their roofs so they could generate money to fix some of the roofs
§     Paying for grants to people that can afford to purchase new expensive electric vehicles (EVs)
§     Paying to put in charging stations for those EVs that use the streets but don’t pay gas taxes
§     Paying for someone else to use coupons to purchase CFL or LED light bulbs
§     Paying for grants to small and medium sized companies to retrofit their lighting systems
§     Paying for expensive electricity generated by solar panels placed on your local municipally owned arena
§     Paying for grants so your municipality can exchange incandescent and halogen street lights to LED lights
§     Paying your local distribution company extra money each year because their revenue deteriorated because you conserved electricity, so they asked for and got a rate increase blessed by the Ontario Energy Board
§     Paying to connect wind and solar generators to the transmission system run by Hydro One, a wholly owned provincial monopoly
§     Paying the cost of electricity produced by your neighbour for those solar panels on his roof for which he gets 80 cents a kilowatt hour
§     Paying for the costs of solar power produced by corporations like Loblaws, Canadian Tire,  IKEA, etc., which they sell into the electricity grid at 70 cents a kilowatt hour, but buy the power they need at the same (or lower) price that you pay
§     Paying forever for “residual stranded debt” that should have been paid off 5 years ago.
§     Paying for the sale of surplus electricity to New York, Michigan, etc. at a price 75/85% below its cost
§     Paying HST on our electricity bills which automatically added 7% to its cost and generates well in excess of $1 billion for the province’s coffers
Now look over these 28 points and think about which represent “wealth transfers” and which represent a “regressive tax.”   Review them again and pick out any that added cost-effective new generation.  Hint: you will probably have trouble finding the latter!
Ontario’s legacy
Energy Minister Chiarelli recently bragged about the reputed $35 billion in new investment attracted to the province by the Green Energy and Green Economy Act and the 31,000 jobs that it supposedly created. Those 31,000 jobs (most are relatively short term construction jobs) will cost the ratepayers of the province over $3 million each.
What Minister Chiarelli didn’t say was that the $35-billion investment will cost ratepayers well over $100/120 billion by the time those 20-year contracts have ended, and most of that will be extracted from the pockets of many Ontarians who cannot afford the “regressive tax” it has become. Many are discovering they can’t afford to turn their lights on for fear of being unable to buy groceries.
What a legacy for the McGuinty/Wynne team.
Parker Gallant,
October 3, 2013
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily Wind Concerns Ontario.

MacLeod named Energy Critic in PC shadow cabinet

30 Monday Sep 2013

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Just announced: Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod has been named the Energy Critic in the Progressive Conservative “shadow” cabinet.

MacLeod has been critical of the proposed 20-megawatt wind power project on farmland in North Gower and Richmond which will be too close to hundreds of people, and which will be financed with subsidies from Ontario taxpayers and ratepayers.

Perth-Wellington MPP Randy Pettapiece has been named Rural Affairs critic; Pettapiece’s family first came to North Gower in the 1800s from England, and has appeared at several events in the Ottawa area speaking on energy and wind power issues.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

Property values “plummet” near wind power, says US appraiser

16 Monday Sep 2013

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Here from Wind Wise Massachusetts:

Studies Show Land-Based Wind Turbines Cause Property Values to Plummet; Wind Wise Massachusetts Claims Study Showing Otherwise is Misleading

Published Monday, Sep. 16, 2013

 

FALMOUTH, Mass., Sept. 16, 2013 — /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A national study that claims there is “no statistical evidence” that real estate prices near wind turbines are negatively impacted is misleading because it lumps homes close to the turbines with those miles away, according to Wind Wise Massachusetts (WWMA).

“The report’s own data found that homes located within one mile to the turbines decreased in value by 28 percent compared to homes located within 3 to 10 miles from the turbines,” according to Virginia Irvine, president of WWMA (windwisema.org), a statewide alliance of grassroots environmental groups and individuals.

“The study’s authors are just perpetuating the myth that wind turbines are not responsible for significant property losses,” she said.

“The report is also comparing apples with oranges as less than 2.5 percent of the more than 50,000 home sales analyzed in recently released Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study were within one mile of the turbines and some were as far as 10 miles away,” Irvine said.

In the widely publicized report, the authors stated in the abstract that “…we find no statistical evidence that home values near turbines were affected in the post-construction or post-announcement/pre-construction periods.”

The report -– A Spatial Hedonic Analysis of the Effects of Wind Energy Facilities on Surrounding Property Values in the United States –- was published by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in August.

Irvine said independent, comprehensive appraisals have found that land-based wind turbines can cause property values to plummet within two miles by 15 percent to 40 percent.

“There is a major difference between turbines in a power plant 10 miles from homes in the country to those that are less than one mile from homes in residential communities,” Irvine said.

“But the sad fact is that whether a wind turbine is near a solo home in the country or in a more heavily populated area, the homeowner is going to see a significant loss in the value of his home,” she added.

“Wind turbines near residential areas are devastating to home values,” according to Michael McCann, president of McCann Appraisal of Chicago.

He said his paired study analysis of homes near wind turbines in more than two dozen communities throughout the country “consistently have found homes losing 25 to 40 per cent of their value.

Contact:  Barry Wanger for Wind Wise Massachusetts, Wanger Associates, 617-965-6469, Barry@WangerAssociates.com

SOURCE Wind Wise Massachusetts

Parker Gallant on Ontario’s “smart grid”: what’s been achieved?

11 Wednesday Sep 2013

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Reprinted from Wind Concerns Ontario today:

On November 23, 2010, Ontario’s then Minister of Energy, Brad Duguid, issued a directive via an Order In Council to the Ontario Energy Board (OEB), with instructions on the “smart grid”:

“… it is desirable that the Province and the Ontario Energy Board move forward together with a plan to implement the advanced information exchange systems and equipment that together comprise the Smart Grid (“Smart Grid”), as defined in the amendments to the Electricity Act, 1998 made by the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009…”

   The Duguid directive was a direct result of the Dwight Duncan directive of 2004 to the OEB instructing them to arrange the installation of “smart meters” throughout the province. 

   Co-incidentally (noted by Tom Adams), the Duguid directive is dated the same day as the e-mail exchange between Alicia Johnston (formerly a senior political staffer for Energy Minister Brad Duguid, later promoted to the Premier’s Office) and Ben Chin (a senior Ontario Power Authority executive).  That e-mail exchange contained Ms Johnston’s suggestion to engage Tyler Hamilton, a  contributor to Toronto Star, as an “expert” to counter the  Adams and Gallant duo who “are killing me” ; Chin agreed. Shortly after, Hamilton received a contract from the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) for a report on the smart grid.

    The fact is, the Independent Electricity System Operator or IESO had already started work on the “smart grid” as noted in the Financial Post article on July 6, 2010 — costs of development were estimated at $1.6 billion.  IESO had awarded a contract to IBM according to a January 15, 2007 press release; the purpose of the contract was defined as:  “the development and operation of Ontario’s Meter Data Management/Repository (MDM/R).”

A culture of conservation

The MDM/R is explained as: “a core part of Ontario’s Smart Metering Initiative to drive a culture of conservation, enabling the billing of Time-of-Use rates and encouraging consumers to shift more of their energy use to off-peak periods.” The initiative would apply to 4.7 million customers of local distribution companies, involving more than “100 million transactions every day.”

   More than six years later, that “Repository” has yet to generate reports on either shifting consumer habits or “imbedded generation.” (Embedded or distributed generation is usually a small scale production of power connected within the distribution network and not having direct access to the transmission network. These generators are typically located close to the electricity consumer.)

   But that hasn’t stopped IESO from awarding IBM yet another five-year contract for $68.5 million for the same “repository” with an option to extend the contract seven to ten years. With an estimated 100 million data feeds daily from “smart meters” one would expect that data to be accessible to determine what production comes from embedded generators such as rooftop or ground-mounted solar, to reinforce the “culture of conservation” and identify shifts in consumer habits. 

  Is this a missed opportunity for a cost/benefit analysis?

  On July 16 of this year, Energy Minister  Bob Chiarelli arranged a press release about conservation and claimed that “Ontario has saved billions of dollars through conservation, and we have a clear opportunity to do more. By investing in conservation before new generation, where cost-effective, we can save ratepayers money and give consumers new technology to track and control energy use.”

  What caught my eye in that press release were the endorsements: they were not from the usual climate change chorus such as Environmental Defence, CAPE,or the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. The last one was  “Sheldon Levy, President, Ryerson University.”  What would possess the President of Ryerson University to jump on this band wagon? 

  A month later, we have the answer:  on August 26, 2013  a news release announced that Ryerson University’s Centre for Urban Energy (CUE) “will build an innovative smart grid laboratory” with support from the province.  The press release doesn’t say how much the province is coughing up but does say “Building a smarter grid is an important part of the Ontario government’s plan to modernize the electricity system in the province and provide clean, reliable and affordable power to consumers.”  One can assume President levy’s endorsement of the July conservation announcement was sought by the Ministry as a condition of support for  the smart grid laboratory.  CUE was launched in 2010 with $7 million in grants from taxpayer-owned Hydro One, Toronto Hydro and the Ontario Power Authority.

  A  Globe and Mail article dated October 17, 2012, called “The tricky business of funding a university” carried the following comments about Ryerson’s CUE:

“Some schools have tiptoed the line successfully. Toronto’s Ryerson University launched its Centre for Urban Energy (CUE) two years ago using $7-million in contributions from three partners – Hydro One, Toronto Hydro and the Ontario Power Authority – and is now hoping to enlist new collaborators such as Siemens and General Electric.”

   It appears that President Levy knows exactly how to “tiptoe the line.” CUE’s intentions to collaborate with GE and Siemens are also interesting.  An announcement by Minister Chiarelli on July 2, 2013  indicates that the $50-million “Smart Grid” fund has already provided grants to GE, Siemens and IBM.

   Just asking: did the grants to GE and Siemens carry a proviso that they collaborate with CUE and did they both seek those grants?  It is not clear why IBM would need a grant as they have been awarded two long-term, multi-million dollar contracts from IESO.  The press release indicates the IBM grant was to create a centre “that will use and analyze smart meter data” which is what they are already supposed to be doing for IESO under the terms of the contract(s)!

Government grants to huge corporations

   So, we hand out grants to multi-billion dollar corporations such as GE, Siemens and IBM and  award them government contracts.  The first two entities are entrenched in the renewable energy business (turbines and blade manufacturing) so, to an extent they are dependent on commitments to more wind power by the Ministry of Energy. And, IBM won two contracts related to the data analysis of 4.7 million smart meters installed throughout the province.

  (I checked the Ontario Lobbyist Registry and could only find GE with registered lobbyists.)

   As noted above, the original estimate to create the smart grid was $1.6 billion, to be paid by Ontario’s ratepayers.  IESO stick-handled the first smart grid rate application through the OEB and ratepayers have paid for it since May 1, 2013.  It is included, but hidden, with the delivery costs charged by your local distribution company (LDC).  It is a charge of .79 cents per month and referred to as a “Smart Metering Entity charge.”  Your LDC will collect this for the next five and a half years.  Doing the math on this rate hike indicates that it will cover $245 million of that $1.6 billion —so be prepared for further “hidden” increases as spending is ramped up. 

   As noted, the MDM/R definition it is really all about conservation and enabling those 72 LDCs to bill on a Time-of-Use basis.  Those “smart meters” and “smart grid” will cost ratepayers $4 billion and will not produce one kilowatt of new power.  I suspect that Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller doesn’t consider the above costs or the costs of the smart meters, when he presents his annual report to the Minister of the Environment.  The Commissioner’s cost/benefit study uses only the annual spending of the Ontario Power Authority (media advertising, free fridge pickup, coupons to purchase CFL bulbs, etc.) which paints the cost of “conservation” as only three cents per kilowatt hour. 

   In addition,  a posting on Scott Luft’s website indicates that time-of use pricing has shifted consumers’ energy use to what used to be “off-peak” periods (noted as an objective of the MDT/R). As a result, those periods have now become “peak” demand periods for ordinary consumers, beginning at 7 PM, rather than mid-day.  Ontario’s ratepayers are now trained to eat our supper and wash our clothes later, not because we want to, but because electricity has become so costly we only use it during the off-peak hours!

   Perhaps the Dalton McGuinty government should have simply doubled the price of electricity when they came to power in 2003 and we would have immediately started to conserve.   Think of the money we could have saved, the countryside we would not have despoiled with industrial wind turbines, the harm to health not caused, the birds and bats not killed, and the property values that would not have fallen!

   Too bad politicians don’t grasp the simple law of supply and demand.

 

Parker Gallant.

September 11, 2013

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent Wind Concerns Ontario policy.

Ontario’s Not a Willing Host communities meet today

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

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Coalition of ‘Unwilling Host’ Municipalities

Press Advisory August 20, 2013, Ottawa

Representatives of the 62 municipalities that have declared themselves ‘unwilling hosts’ to wind turbines are coming together during the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) meeting currently underway in Ottawa to discuss ways to bring their concerns more forcefully to the government.

According to Kevin Marriott, Mayor of Enniskillen, ‘the government has not addressed the concerns of these communities’.  In the Throne Speech and other statements by the Premier, they talked about wanting to locate projects in willing host communities, but there has been no substance to these announcements in terms of municipal input will be incorporated in the process.  Meanwhile, the government continues to approve wind turbine projects without consideration of municipal concerns according to Marriott.

Some municipal officials represented at AMO have already experienced the impact of wind turbines on their communities.  Complaints start once when they become operational with people being forced from their homes by noise and low frequency noise vibrations.  These municipalities are looking for the MOE to actually start enforcing the noise standards that they have set and to follow up on the health complaints being filed with Medical Officers of Health.

Mayor April Jeffs of Wainfleet wants the government to start applying learning from these early projects and apply increased set-backs from people’s homes to new projects before they are approved.  Wainfleet adopted a 2 kilometer set-back by-law that was challenged in court by the wind developer.

Municipalities are looking for the government to return real local planning authority for wind turbines to local municipalities.  These powers were taken away by the Green Energy Act. Municipalities are better placed that a Queen’s Park civil servants to identify local issues that need to be addressed in reviewing wind turbine projects.  They also have processes in place to review and approve other complex or controversial projects building projects that take place in their municipalities.

The municipal representatives at AMO will be meeting Tuesday August 20 at 4:30 pm. in the Governor-General 1 on the 4th floor of the Westin Hotel in Ottawa.

For further details contact, Kevin Marriott at 519-383-9170 or April Jeffs at 905-658-7890.

Mayor Watson’s letter to our community

05 Monday Aug 2013

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Back in May, after the decision by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in the case of Wiggins et al vs wpd, we wrote to the Mayor of the City of Ottawa to inform him of the importance of the Court’s decision: that it was acceptable for property owners who live as neighbours to property being leased for industrial-scale wind turbines to sue for property value loss and nuisance at the time of approval of a wind power project (i.e., they do not have to wait until the power project is built), and that the Court accepted that property value loss had already occurred simply with the announcement of the power project near Clearview Ontario, on the order of 22-50 percent.

The effect of the proposed wind power project in North Gower-Richmond will be significant, we wrote , in terms of the potential danger to health (also acknowledged by the Court) and property value loss, which we estimate to be approximately–and conservatively–$70 million.

We received a reply from the Mayor, in which he repeats that this is a provincial responsibility (that was written in all capital letters so we wouldn’t miss it), and that the “regime” [sic] in place for renewable energy approvals is “quite onerous.”

“Should a wind power developer* seek a renewable energy approval in Ottawa,” he wrote, “the City will review all documentation and information relating to the proposed development and fully participate in any such consultative process. …the City will be in a better position to assess its response…and to address any concerns and needs of the public.”  Note he does not say that the City will ensure people are not harmed; he does not say, the City will ensure that its residents are protected.

The letter is here: MayorWatsonLetterJuly17

We wrote back–sorry to take up more of his time–and said that we had recently participated in “dialogue” sessions with the province and found that we, along with other stakeholders, believe the renewable power (they keep saying ‘energy’ because it sounds nicer than power plants, but that’s the truth) planning process is deeply flawed and Ontario needs a completely new process. There was NO ONE from the City of Ottawa at the evening session we attended, and as far as we know, NO ONE from the City of Ottawa at the morning session, hosted by the Ontario Power Authority.

We told the Mayor that we demanded a return of local land-use planning powers to municipalities (removed by the Green Energy Act) and also a cost-benefit analysis including the impacts, financial and health, on local communities.

Many analysts are now describing the province’s “green” energy plan as a monumental policy failure that has already run electricity prices so high it is affecting businesses’ ability to be competitive (let alone survive) and has had an astounding effect on Ontario’s rural and small urban communities.

All we ask is that our City protect us from a power plant that is not needed, which uses an invasive, expensive and unreliable technology,  and which will doubtless negatively affect this community.

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Not a Willing Host demonstration, Ottawa City Hall, April 2013; MPP Lisa MacLeod and community members.

Ottawa Wind Concerns

*the Marlborough 1 project is on “hold” until the province announces its new procurement process; wind developer Prowind, headquartered in Germany, told the Ottawa Citizen recently that it intends to reapply when the new process is in place.

ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

Donations welcome at PO Box 3, North Gower ON   K0A 2T0

Ottawa economist on 10 years of power mismanagement in Ontario

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Health, Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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You’ve read Bob Lyman, an economist specializing in energy issues, on these pages before.

In his latest work, he has written an overview of the last 10 years of energy policy as it relates to electricity in Ontario, and come up with the very worrying conclusion: the whole thing has been grossly mismanaged.

The question now is, can Ontario ever get out of this hole? That’s tough when Ontario keeps approving big, expensive wind power projects on the order of one a week this summer, despite not having a current long-term energy plan.

Here is Bob Lyman’s latest:

Ten Years of Liberal Mismanagement of Ontario’s Electricity System

A Layperson’s Summary

On July 16, 2013, Parker Gallant, a retired banker who for about six years has written about Ontario electricity policies, wrote an article to mark the forthcoming tenth anniversary of the Liberal Party’s tenure as government of Ontario. Mr. Gallant’s article can be found at the following link:

http://www.freewco.blogspot.ca/2013/07/ontario-liberals-10-years-of.html

This article is of great importance for Ontario residents who want to understand what has been happening to electricity supply, demand and prices over the past decade and, perhaps more importantly, how they should weigh these developments as they contemplate forthcoming elections in the province. Shortly, there will be five by-elections in different parts of Ontario that may swing the balance of power in the legislature. It is also likely that there will be a general election in Ontario within the next two years.

Voters need to understand what the fuss is all about and how it affects them. Unfortunately, Mr. Gallant’s article, as wonderfully insightful as it is, might be difficult to understand for the average citizen who does not follow electricity matters on a regular basis. The objective of this note is to offer a somewhat simplified version of the story people should know. …

Read the whole document here: Ten Years of Liberal Mismanagement of Ontario’s Electricity System

Upcoming topics: what does the situation at Chatham-Kent airport (where 8 turbines have been order removed) really mean?

Please contact us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

Donations welcome at PO Box 3, North Gower ON   K0A 2T0