How does Ottawa’s Climate team expect to run Ontario’s second largest city on power that’s just not there?

July 15, 2022

At 5 p.m. today, the province-wide demand for power was just over 19,000 megawatts on a warm summer afternoon.

The closest wind power plant to Ottawa is at Crysler (Finch, Berwick). At that hour, the 100-megawatt facility was generating just 7 megawatts of power. Next closest is Amherst Island’s Windlectric project, also producing just 7 megawatts of power.

Wind in total that hour was producing 395 megawatts of power.

Ottawa city staff on the climate team have made it clear they think Ontario’s second largest city can run on “predominately wind and solar.” On May 17th, section manager Andrea Flowers told the environmental protection committee that “we have explicitly said that [the energy resource for the city] would include renewable energy generation both wind and solar”.

Commentator and former international banker Parker Gallant has made much of Ontario’s unavailable wind power supply in recent days. He says, if you completely shut down Ontario’s wind power fleet, you wouldn’t notice a thing. Why?

It’s not there.

Here’s what he had to say about one day’s performance earlier this week:

“Yesterday, July 13, 2022, was one of those; not so hot summer days in most of Ontario so according to IESO (Independent Electricity System of Ontario) peak demand at hour 16 only reached 18,135 MW during a five (5) minute interval.  At that hour those IWT (industrial wind turbines) with a capacity of 4,900 MW were contributing 108 MW or 2.2% of their capacity and 0.6% of demand. Had they been absent they wouldn’t have been missed!”

Gallant also wrote an article for The Financial Post this week in which he described wind as a “fickle energy friend.” In a day not unlike today, July 13th saw wind producing a few hundred megawatts of power while demand was more than 19,000 megawatts.

Who did show up for work that afternoon? Gallant answers the question:

“What sources did the work at this peak-demand hour? Here’s the breakdown:

• Nuclear                9,529 MW
• Hydro                   5,222 MW
• Natural Gas         4,336 MW
• IWT                          332 MW
• Solar                        207 MW
• Biofuel                     115 MW”

Ottawa’s Energy Evolution document, the “action plan” for the Climate Change Master Plan and the first step in implementation, actually calls for Ottawa to get its own 3,200 megawatts of wind power, which they translate into 710 wind wind turbines ( Energy Evolution, page 45).

The model states that those are the MINIMUM required for the city to get to “Net Zero” and electrify everything — a worthy goal, but not going to happen with wind power. No cost-benefit analysis was included.

Ottawa voters need to ask election candidates a few pointed questions leading up to the October municipal election.

Are you aware of the Energy Evolution plan?

Have you read it?

Do you support more than 700 wind turbines in Ottawa’s rural communities, effectively turning them into industrial power plants?

Oh, did we mention the Energy Evolution is priced out at $57 billion?????

Time to ask questions.

Ottawa Wind Concerns is an incorporated, not-for-profit group, with a membership list of several hundred residents of rural Ottawa communities and other stakeholders. We are a community group member of the Wind Concerns Ontario coalition.Our goal: a safe environment…for everyone

ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com