As if the process for wind power siting and approval wasn’t slanted enough in the favour of the corporate wind power developers, now the Independent Electricity Systems Operator (IESO) has announced that because so many bids were received for contracts, it needs more time to determine the successful bidders.
That means, Ontario communities will not know until March 2016, whether they have been selected to be transformed into an industrial power location.
Listen to experts on turbine noise to protect health: Wind Concerns Ontario to MOECC
November 24, 2015
Wind Concerns Ontario has written to the Green Energy Approvals section of the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, following testimony from acoustics experts at the appeal of the White Pines wind power project last week. We demanded that the MOECC review the testimony of the witnesses, specifically that Ontario’s noise regulations are inadequate to protect health, and apply the information to the current review of noise regulations for wind turbines in Ontario.
The letter has been received and acknowledged.
The letter follows.
Stephanie Liu
Senior Program Advisor
Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change
Environmental Programs Division, Modernization of Approvals Branch, Green Energy Approvals,
135 St. Clair Avenue West Toronto Ontario M4V 1P5
November 20, 2015
RE: NOISE GUIDELINES FOR WIND POWER PROJECTS
We are aware that the comment period for the proposed amendments to current noise guidelines for wind power projects has closed; however, there is testimony being given at the appeal of the White Pines project in Prince Edward County that is germane to your review, and should not be overlooked.
Several experts in acoustics, who have technical experience measuring the noise and low frequency noise emissions from wind power projects, have testified over the last few days to the following key points:
The Ontario regulations are inadequate to protect health
The Ontario regulations rely heavily on A-weighted measurement which is not adequate or appropriate (this fact was already mentioned in the federal government funded report from the Council of Canadian Academies)
Wind power developers’ predictions for noise are not always accurate and again, seek to conform to the inadequate regulations of the Ontario government
The Health Canada study of wind turbine noise and health clearly shows there are problems after 35 dB
What follows is a citizen report of testimony given by Dr Paul Schomer, an eminent acoustics professional.
APPEC’s health appeal continued on Day 10 with expert witness Dr. Paul Schomer testifying before the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) on the White Pines wind project. The remainder of the day was spent making adjustments to the schedule following WPD’s abrupt announcement that it was dropping an appeal of the disallowance of two turbines (T7 and T11) by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC).
Dr. Schomer, a former Standards Director of the Acoustical Society of America with 48 years’ experience in noise measurement, was qualified by the ERT as an expert in acoustics. He told the Tribunal that all residents in the White Pines project area will be affected by audible and inaudible sound and a number of residents will be seriously affected. The effects reported by people living near wind projects are similar in nature to the effects experienced by participants in a 1985 University of Toronto study on infrasound.
At lower levels and at higher levels of pure tone some participants experienced nausea and dizziness. However, when overtones were added at higher levels, participants experienced headaches and fatigue. Dr. Schomer considers that internationally-accepted noise standards and protocols are being flouted in Ontario. For example, A-weighting is not supposed to be relied on when sounds have low-frequency content such as those emitted by industrial wind turbines.
Canada is one of the countries that voted for this rule. He also calls for changes in current Ontario regulations to adjust up to 10 db(A) for wind turbine noise in rural areas. Other suggested adjustments include up to 3 db(A) for weather conditions and 3 to 4 db(A) for locations downwind of turbines.
Dr. Schomer is highly critical of WPD’s current predicted average sound as it merely indicates that 50% of the time 50% of the residents will be exposed to sound above or below the limit. The wind industry should be held to a higher level of accountability: db(A) limits should be met 95% of the time.
Dr. Schomer pointed to a very important figure in the Health Canada Report. Only 1% of people are shown to be highly annoyed at 30 – 35 db(A) sound levels. However, at 35 – 40 db(A) the number jumps to 40%. Dr. Schomer sees this as evidence of a community response to wind turbine noise, and that what Health Canada says, what independent acoustic experts say, and what communities say should carry weight in Ontario.
Through experience Dr. Schomer has found that when community responses disagree with the physics, the physics is usually wrong. This has been confirmed by his involvement in six studies of wind farms, including the 8-turbine Shirley Wind Farm in Wisconsin where three families abandoned their homes and about 60 other people reported adverse health effects.
We would ask that the Ministry be certain to review and consider this important evidence in its review of the noise guidelines for wind power projects, which are in no way “farms.”
Just this past week, Wind Concerns Ontario has learned of seven families forced to leave their homes in the area of the Goshen project; another half-dozen families are leaving their homes behind in West Grey. This is all due to the noise experienced.
This is a matter of grave concern, and we hope the government is sincere when it says its mission is to “protect the environment” which also means, the environment people live in.
A Conservative senator is calling out large environmental groups for their silence on the impact of wind turbines on bird populations.
Ontario Senator Bob Runciman, who in 2011 introduced a motion that was unanimously passed by the Senate calling for a moratorium on wind turbine developments in Important Bird Areas, said large environmental groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund and the David Suzuki Foundation have not addressed one of the biggest criticisms of wind energy.
“Thousands of birds are being needlessly slaughtered simply because these industrial wind farms are located in the wrong places,” Runciman wrote in a letter Monday. “Yet the very organizations dedicated to protecting wildlife have been shockingly silent. I’d like to know why.”
In an interview with the Whig, Runciman said the impacts on bird and bat populations has been ignored by groups such as the World Wildlife Fund Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation.
“Organizations that have essentially been silent on this. I think that has had a positive political impact for the government,” Runciman said.
“There’s simply not the recognition levels raised and no real effort to make people aware of it or express concern themselves as an organization.”
Runciman said those groups do not want to be appear to be opposed to green energy and do not want to get on the wrong side of the Liberal government.
Runciman also said larger environmental groups are based in large urban centres, such as Toronto, while wind energy projects are being proposed or built mainly in rural areas.
“I’m not talking about green energy itself, I’m talking about putting these turbines in these areas where they are going to kill thousands and thousands of birds and bats and jeopardize a significant amount of endangered species,” Runciman said.
Gideon Forman, a climate change policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation, agreed that wind turbines shouldn’t be placed in sensitive bird and bat areas.
But Forman said the impact on bird and bat populations should not be used to derail efforts to introduce more renewable energy in Ontario.
“Windmills do kill some birds but you need to put that in context,” Forman said.
“The greatest threat to birds, and indeed other wildlife, will be climate change so we absolutely need to ramp up properly sited renewables. We need to transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy source, among them wind.
“We do need to put them in the right places. An important bird area is not the right place.”
Forman said research has indicated the number of birds killed by windmills is “tiny” compared to the number killed by flying into buildings and high tension power lines, pesticide use, vehicles and house cats.
“You need to put it in that context.”
Forman said the Suzuki Foundation is a charity and is non-partisan and has members in all areas of the country.
The provincial government is currently evaluating proposals from more than 40 companies bidding for large renewable energy contracts. Of the 565 megawatts of renewable energy the contracts are expected to produce, 300 megawatts is to come from wind energy.
Wind energy projects have been proposed, approved or built for areas stretching from Prince Edward County, Greater Napanee, Amherst Island, off shore near Main Duck Island and on Wolfe Island.
Wind turbine and home, Brinston, Ontario. Photo by Ray Pilon.
Residents of the Brinston area, living with the South Branch wind power project operated by EDP Renewables of Spain, are reminded to call with any complaints or problems with noise or vibration experienced.
People with complaints about excessive noise from the turbines at Brinston must call both the developer, EDP Renewables (1-877-910-3377 ext 3) AND the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change/MOECC (1-800-860-2760 Cornwall area office).
It is recommended that you call and leave a message with the particulars of your complaint such as the time of day, the duration of the problem experienced, and your specific location.
You may wish to document events on your own: there are applications to measure noise and infrasound that are free downloads to your cellphone. Record noise events by date and time, the noise level you record, and also the wind speed at the time you make your notes.
Follow up your call to the MOECC with another call to determine what action has been taken.
Note that the wind “farm” operator was mandated to complete a post-operational noise assessment which to date, it has not been done. This means that the protections afforded Ontario residents under the Green Energy Act and regulation 359/09 may not be in place for South Branch area residents. If you are concerned about this contact your MPP Jim McDonell at jim.mcdonellco@pc.ola.org and the MOECC at https://www.ontario.ca/contact-us or1-800-565-4923
The September 2015 summary report from IESO demonstrates that once again, Ontario ratepayers picked up additional costs for exporting surplus power. The September results, gleaned from examination of the “monthly summary” indicates it cost $100 million to subsidize Ontario-generated electricity exports to New York, Michigan, etc., in September.
That totals $1.5 billion for the first nine months of 2015. The 16.2 terawatts exported in those nine months could have supplied power to 1.7 million average Ontario households for the full year.
What’s really annoying is finding out that our neighbours in Buffalo are engaged in an industry attraction effort that is meeting with some success. A recent article about the NY government subsidized building ($750 million) of SolarCity’s “gigafactory” in Buffalo to manufacture solar panels indicates they are on the comeback trail and attracting investments. One of the reasons is because they are able to offer a “huge benefit: the electricity rate for manufacturers averages just 4.79 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is possible because of cheap hydroelectric power generated from Niagara Falls.”
Because some of our power generated from Niagara Falls1. and other sources in September was sold as surplus power for just 3.19 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), we’re actually helping Buffalo offer those attractive electricity rates.
This fact should remind all Ontarians of the promises made to us by the Ontario Liberal government when it enacted Bill 150, the Green Energy and Green Economy Act (GEA). The April 8, 2009 Standing Committee on General Government transcript on Bill 150, with the then Ontario Energy Minister George Smitherman on the stand, elicited this response to a question posed about the effects of the GEA on electricity prices:
“We anticipate about 1% per year of additional rate increase associated with the bill’s implementation over the next 15 years. Our estimate of cost increases is based upon the way that we actually amortize costs in the energy sector.”
Let’s look back to September 2009, the year the Legislature passed the GEA, when Ontario demand for electricity was 10,932,000 megawatt hours (MWh) and compare to September 2015 when Ontario demand was slightly higher (+3.8%), reaching 11,362,000 MWh. IESO’s monthly summary for September 2009 indicates the “average weighted cost” (all-in) to consumers was $82.73/MWh whereas the “average weighted cost” for September 2015 was $125.35/MWh.
That translates to an increase of $42.62/MWh or 4.26 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), and cost ratepayers $453 million extra for just one month. Looking at this in a slightly different way, the extra MWh we consumed for September 2015 versus 2009 came at a cost of $1,196 each or $11.96 per kWh, had generation and delivery costs remained the same through those six years.
It is clear costs to ratepayers have already become a multiple of the Smitherman promise … and we still have nine years left in his forecast.
The Auditor General pointed out the Energy Ministry failed to complete a cost/benefit study before implementing the GEA. There was never any acknowledgement or accounting for the intermittent nature of renewable energy, the fact power is produced when it’s not needed, and the need for renewables to be backed up with other generation (along with transmission line costs to bring it to where it’s needed) was apparently never considered.
And now, in spite of the evidence of the past six years, the march continues to add more wind and solar to the Ontario grid, which means Buffalo and other jurisdictions will reap the rewards.
As Buffalo adds manufacturing jobs, Ontario is shedding them. Ontario’s electricity ratepayers are wondering, what will the next nine years bring?
CanWEA’s Hornung: his definition of ‘reliable’ is a bit off
Wind power: unreliable, and costly
Re-posted from Wind Concerns Ontario, with permission
Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA), frequently uses the word “reliable” when expounding on the purported benefits of generating power from wind. Here are a couple of them: “Wind energy is meeting Canada’s demand for new electricity in a clean,reliable and cost-competitive way,” says Hornung. And this one: “Wind energy provides reliable power”.
Hornung’s use of the word “reliable” is not the same as Webster’s defines it: “to be relied on” and “giving the same result on repeated trials”. His use of the term “cost-competitive” fails the same test!
Some recent events offer contradicting evidence on the issue of wind’s “reliability” as a power source.
On October 5, 2015 wind production for the full 24 hours was 2,636 megawatts (MW) averaging 110 MW per hour—that represented just 0.5% of Ontario’s average demand of 16,394 MW per hour. Now measured against Ontario’s average hourly demand of October 19, 2015 at 14,997 MW is an interesting contrast. Ontario’s industrial wind turbines (IWTs), with an IESO1. reported capacity of 3,427 MW, were producing an average of 2,474 MW per hour, and in 24 hours cranked out 59,389 MWh, representing 16.5% of the average hourly demand. The lower demand day of October 19th (9.4% less than October 5th) saw those IWTs producing power at very high levels, which coincidentally resulted in average hourly exports 760 MW higher per hour.
The connection to high wind power generation and higher exports is obvious, as is the lower average of the hourly Ontario energy price (HOEP). October 5th that was $30.99 per MWh, but only $21.62 (30% lower) on October 19th.
What does it mean? Ontario’s ratepayers subsidized wind on the higher demand day by picking up the cost of $252K (2,626 X $127/MWh2. = $333K – $81K [2,626 X $30.99/MWh] = $252K). Compared to the subsidy picked up by Ontario’s ratepayers on October 19th , however, that was a bargain. On the latter day the cost was considerably more at $6.2 million (59,389 MWh X $127= $7.5 million – $1.3 million [59,389 MWh X $21.62/MWh] = $6.2 million).
Mr. Hornung and CanWEA may consider “reliable” to mean Ontario’s ability to supply our neighbours in New York, Michigan and elsewhere with power that is “cost-competitive.” It’s just not in his best interest to express it that way.
CanWEA needs to find new talking points that deal with the facts: power generation from wind is totally unreliable and anything but cost-competitive!
IESO do not report the full capacity until the IWT are commissioned by them, whereas the full capacity may be considerably higher.
The OEB estimates the average cost of wind generation at $127/MWh.
P.S.: Hour 18 on October 24, 2015 saw a new record for wind generation in Ontario with 3,123 MWh meaning IWT were operating at over 91% of capacity, and the HOEP (hourly Ontario energy price) was $13.36— subsidies were $350K for just that hour.
It’s a high-stakes legal battle over London-area wind farms that pits a self-proclaimed, Canada-loving, Texas oil tycoon against the federal government.
Mesa Power Group LLC vs. Government of Canada, a case that could leave taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, is expected to be ruled on within weeks, four years after the claim was launched by T. Boone Pickens under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Though the federal government is the defendant, Pickens’ real quarrel is with Ontario.
In submissions and testimony before the NAFTA panel hearing the arbitration case, Pickens’ company claims it failed to win contracts for four massive wind farms in Huron and Bruce counties in Southwestern Ontario because of political interference at the highest level.
“This whole process was not carried out in good faith. This was not honesty. This was not fairness. This process was infused with raw politics, arbitrariness, and an egregious abuse of authority,” Mesa lawyer Barry Appleton said in his closing submission to the panel’s three arbitrators at a hearing in Toronto in October 2014.
The claim contains allegations that have not been proven.
In his own testimony before the NAFTA arbitrators, Pickens described how he was a big fan of Canada because of its rule of law.
“My experiences were so good that I enjoyed telling people about it,” he said, relating how he came to Canada with less than $100,000 in 1959 and sold out 20 years later for $610 million.
But his experience in Ontario left him disappointed, he said.
“You always feel bad when you lose, and then you look to see why you lost, and here we lost because we didn’t have a level playing field,” Pickens testified.
Home to Ontario’s largest wind farms with its largest number of the highrise-sized turbines, Southwestern Ontario is no stranger to the controversies generated by the power-producing windmills. Critics have decried them as a threat to human health, divisive to rural communities and a financial blow to a province that signed up producers with early sweetheart deals paying them far more to generate power than consumers pay.
Details of this latest dust-up are found on a federal government website containing submissions by Mesa, the governments of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and transcripts of the claim heard before a NAFTA tribunal last fall.
Mesa argued that other wind farm companies, Florida-based NextEra Energy and Korean-based Samsung — both, industry giants — were given illegal, preferential treatment and inside information that doomed Mesa’s projects.
“It was a cesspool. It was shameful. I feel very badly after seeing what went on here for my fellow Ontarians and the ratepayers of Ontario. They are having to bear the burden of the shameful behaviour,” Appleton said in a transcript from the hearing.
Responding to Mesa’s arguments, also at the hearing, Canada’s lawyers rejected Mesa’s assertions and said the company’s failures were self-inflicted.
“This is a case which is, as the expression goes, about sour grapes. It is a case about an investor who took a business risk and is unwilling to accept that that risk did not pay off,” government of Canada lawyer Shane Spelliscy said.
Spelliscy said Mesa’s applications for contracts with the Ontario Power Corp. were “sloppy” and “poorly done.”
When contracts were handed out, Mesa didn’t get one because its proposals weren’t highly ranked in a process monitored by an independent third party, Spelliscy said.
If they had put together better applications, they may have been successful, the federal lawyer said.
“There was no discrimination,” he said.
According to Mesa’s submissions, it decided to develop wind farms in Ontario — one, a 200-megawatt proposal in Bruce County would have been the largest in Ontario — after learning the province was offering 20-year contracts at a fixed price of 13.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.
“Make no doubt about this, this was a highly attractive rate,” said Appleton.
The rate meant there was no shortage of competing applications. A critical factor for companies became whether there would be enough transmission capacity for wind energy in the areas where they’d selected to build.
Appleton said Mesa had no idea that Ontario had cut a separate deal to allocate transmission capacity to Samsung, a Korean industrial giant, which promised to build manufacturing plants in Ontario.
And Mesa, unlike some of its competitors, was never informed about rule changes, a chance to switch its transmission points in order to increase its chances, he said.
Part of Mesa’s case was based on e-mails from Bob Lopinski, a registered lobbyist for NextEra, to Energy Ministry officials during the allocation process.
Lopinksi, a principal at Counsel Public Affairs, had previously served as director of issues management and legislative affairs to then-premier Dalton McGuinty and advised the Liberal leader on selecting cabinet ministers.
Appleton said though Lopinski and NextEra executives were communicating with Ontario government and Hydro One officials, Mesa understood no such communication was allowed.
Canada’s response filed with the NAFTA panel was there isn’t any evidence NextEra was ever provided with non-public information.
Mesa has asked for damages of $653 million plus interest.
The company claims it already invested $160 million on preliminary work for four proposed wind farms in western Ontario and would have spent $1.2 billion-plus on construction:
It is worth a reminder that the Ontario Liberal government, despite recommendations from TWO Auditors General, NEVER did a cost-benefit analysis or impact of its renewable power program. Are we going to see the lessons learned in Ontario played out on a national scale?
Trudeau has a particularly ambitious plan for renewable energy projects, with a promise to commit nearly $6 billion in green spending over a four-year period and ramping that up to nearly $20 billion over 10 years. The Liberals will also incorporate climate impact analysis into federal contracting, which could get further money flowing into the green space.
All of that will be welcome news for Canada’s renewable energy companies, especially as the previous government focused investment on the oil and gas sector.
“It is fair to assume that the sector will be a big net winner under this government, as they have carved out specific spending in their infrastructure outlays for green energy,” said BMO’s Porter. “Beyond direct spending on the sector, it’s also safe to assume that the government will support the sector heavily through direct measures.”
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For more information on who’s advising our Prime Minister designate, read this account on Gerald Butts, formerly a staffer in the office of Dalton McGuinty, now Trudeau’s top adviser:
Butts was principal secretary to Dalton McGuinty when he assumed the premier’s office. Former secretary of cabinet Tony Dean calls Butts the “smartest senior political and policy adviser that I worked with in almost 20 years in government.”
As Butts helped implement a green energy strategy that would phase out coal and sell a tax his leader had promised never to implement, Telford set out with Kennedy to implement the premier’s ambitious agenda in education.
Six weeks after the deadline for bids for Ontario wind power contracts, Eastern Ontario and the Ottawa area waits for approval of the projects by the Independent Electricity Systems Operator or IESO. Word on the project approvals is expected in November or December.
While Ontario is only contracting for 300 megawatts of wind power (which we don’t need) in 2015, the bids totaled thousands of megawatts for projects all across the province.
Closest to Ottawa is the EDP Renewables bid for an expansion of their project at South Branch (Brinston) and east of Ottawa, EDF, RES Canada and Leader Resources have project bids for the St Isidore, Nation Twp, and Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry areas. None of the projects is supported by the communities and municipal governments.
The project started in 2008 in the North Gower-Richmond area is now defunct, with options expired; the company launching a bid for a contract, Prowind, based in Germany, failed to qualify as a bidder for the 2015 bid process.
The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) reported their semi-annual bad news via the News Release that always contains depressing announcements about upcoming rate increases. Couched in words meant to assuage the reader, is this statement: “The price is increasing by approximately $4.42 per month on the ‘Electricity’ line, and about 3.4% on the total bill, for a household that consumes 800 kWh per month.”
The OEB doesn’t issue a press release when your local distribution company increases their rates, part of the “total bill,” so that reference is meaningless.
If you look at the actual price rise from November 1, 2014 to November 1, 2015 the increase is considerably more than 3.4%. In fact the increase on the charge for the “Electricity” line is 12.8% excluding the HST applied on that increase. The charge for electricity for the “household that consumes 800 kWh per month” increased by a total of $130.31, not the $53.04 that the OEB infers. Even using the “average” RPP (regulated price plan) posted on their site and comparing November 1, 2014 to November 1, 2015, you get an increase of 12.5%!
Costs from renewables are one-third of the increase
Looking further that what’s in the OEB News Release, we find that they attribute the increase as follows: “Increased costs from Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) nuclear and hydro-electric power plants make up about 40% of this increase. Costs from renewable generation sources are another driver, representing about one-third of the increase.” I emphasized the last sentence as it doesn’t reflect certain facts about renewable generation (principally wind and solar), including the need to pay OPG for spilled (unused) hydro power, payments to gas plants to idle (ensuring power is available when the wind dies down or the clouds cover the skies), or directions to complete marginal generation (Mattagami’s project cost was $2.6 billion) which produces power when it’s not needed, in the Spring and Fall periods when Ontario’s demand is low.
Millions lost in one day
You need only look back to October 13, 2015, a windy day when the industrial wind turbines were cranking out unneeded power. The reported 3,450 MW of wind capacity was spitting out an average of 2,200 MW per hour, at a cost for the whole day of $6.5 million. Ontario was busy exporting 2,228 MW every hour that day, being paid 1.8 cents a kWh and at the same time, paying wind developers an average of 12.3 cents per kWh—we lost more than $5.5 million. That’s just one day!
Now if the OEB were really transparent, they would bring these issues to the forefront.At a minimum, the people who write news releases for the OEB should also be required to take some remedial math courses!
Ontario electricity customers should demand that the Ontario Energy Board, whose mission is to “regulate prices in the public interest,” demonstrate factual reporting and provide consumers with the truth about rate increases.
Ottawa Wind Concerns 