Tag Archives: electricity bills Ontario

Ontario electricity bills up 97%; more wind power contracts to come

09 Tuesday Feb 2016

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Ontario gives away $4.5B in ratepayer dollars; Energy Minister Chiarelli persists in directive to add more intermittent, expensive wind power

Electricity costs up 97 percent in Ontario: power surplus exports rising

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February 8, 2016. Reposted from Wind Concerns Ontario

The GA or Global Adjustment first made its appearance on IESO’s Monthly Market Report in January 2007. As noted in the chart below, that year, the GA finished 2007 at $3.95 per megawatt hour (MWh) which means it cost Ontario’s electricity ratepayers about $600 million for the full year. In, 2015 the GA was just shy of $10 billion.

To be fair, the GA includes the price of “contracted” power, less the value given to it on the hourly Ontario electricity price (HOEP) market. As a result of Ontario’s high surplus of generating capacity and the intermittent presentation of wind and solar in periods of low demand, has resulted in the HOEP showing declining values. Despite declining values the cost of a kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity increased from an average of 5.43 cents/kWh to 10.7 cents/kWh from November 1, 2007 to November 1, 2015 — up 97%. The upsetting part, and a driving force behind the 97% increase is surplus generation sold to our neighbours. We sell excess output to New York and Michigan, etc. without inclusion of the GA. The GA lost on those sales is charged to Ontario ratepayers and has become increasingly large. The chart indicates the “intertie flows” (exports/imports netted) initially cost Ontario ratepayers $20 million for 2007, but that has increased, and representing more $1.3 billion for 2015.

It is anticipated the annual cost of subsidizing surplus exports will continue to climb.

Scott Luft notes results for January 2016 are 20% higher than January 2015 for the cost of electricity as the HOEP was lower despite what Ontario’s Liberal government says about pricing stabilizing. With plans to add 500 MW of capacity for wind and solar, the climb will continue for at least another two years. Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli recently stated: “Our government’s focus is now on preparations for the next long term energy plan and the ways in which we can continue to drive down costs for Ontarians”. (Note to the Minister: a 97% increase does not “drive down costs”!)

Further reference to the chart points out addition of more wind and solar over the past nine years has driven up the percentage of renewables exported. The “Net Intertie” (net exports) increased from 19.6% in 2007 to over 57% in 2015.

What the Energy Minister needs to accept is this: we don’t need more intermittent and unreliable power.

That message is not getting through, despite evidence presented by the Auditor General of Ontario on several occasions and by numerous critics in the media.

Costing ratepayers $4.5 billion in after-tax dollars to help our neighbours is what’s happened. Perhaps Minister Chiarelli could suggest to Finance Minister Charles Sousa, that the money extracted from ratepayers provides no benefits to Ontarians. Perhaps a tax receipt is in order — that would help cash-strapped citizens, but there is a better idea.

The Energy Minister needs to immediately recall his directive to the IESO to acquire another 500 MW of contracts for intermittent wind and solar power.

© Parker Gallant,
February 7, 2016

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

Year Net Intertie 1. Global Adjustment Cost to Ratepayers % of Renewables to Wind Solar &
TWh 2. Million of $/TWh GA X Net Intertie Net Intertie Biomass generation
(millions)
2015 16.86 TWh $77.80 $1,311 57.20%        9.65TWh
2014 15.15 TWh $54.59 $846 47.00%        7.12TWh
2013 13.40 TWh $59.22 $794 48.50%        6.50TWh
2012 9.90 TWh $49.23 $487 59.60%        5.90TWh
2011 9.00 TWh $40.48 $364 56.70%        5.10TWh
2010 8.80 TWh $27.18 $239 46.60%        4.10TWh
2009 11.30 TWh $30.56 $345 31.00%        3.50TWh
2008 10.90 TWh $6.12 $67 22.00%        2.40TWh
2007 5.10 TWh $3.95 $20 19.60%        1.00TWh
       Totals 100.40 TWh $4,473     37.00TWh

Power surplus in Ontario: another wind farm announced

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

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$1.5 million spent paying off wind power developers NOT to add unneeded power to the grid already on February 3rd

From Wind Concerns Ontario:

100-MW North Kent wind farm posted despite surplus power in Ontario

Ontario electricity customers pick up the tab for unneeded power development, again

The huge, 100-megawatt North Kent 1 wind power project proposed by the Samsung-Pattern Energy consortium was posted yesterday on the Ontario Environmental Registry. The announcement comes despite the Ontario Auditor General’s report in 2015 that Ontario has a significant oversupply of electrical power, and that Ontario ratepayers are paying too much for “renewables.”

In just the first eight hours today, the day after the announcement for North Kent 1, the Independent Electricity System Operator or  IESO curtailed about 11,000 MWh of wind generation alone.  It could have provided power for 1200 average households; instead it has cost Ontario electricity ratepayers $1.5 million … for nothing.

The power developers claim the power produced from this project during its 20-year agreement with the province will generate “electricity equivalent to the annual electricity needs of 35,000 homes.”

Their use of the wording “equivalent to” is interesting because with Ontario’s current and significant surplus of power, the electricity generated from this project will almost certainly NOT go to Ontario electricity customers, but instead will be sold at a discount to neighbouring jurisdictions like Michigan and New York State.

As an example, Samsung-Pattern’s Armow wind project just began operation this week, and energy analyst and blogger Scott Luft commented: “the only drivers of price in Ontario are excess supply and supply rate increases (primarily at OPG). Samsung’s announcement states ‘Armow Wind is expected to generate enough clean energy to power approximately 70,000 Ontario homes each year’, but …  it’s unlikely it will have the opportunity to power a single one — it will power American homes or nothing at all.”

Energy commentator Parker Gallant also remarked: “The power [from the Armow project] delivered to Ontario will be charged to all average ratepayers at 13.5 cents/kWh whereas the power (probably about 50% of production) will be charged out to those NY & Michigan ratepayers at about 2.5 cents/kWh. Ontario ratepayers will pick up the difference between the 2.5 cents the surplus is sold for and the 13.5 cents/kWh the Armow owners will be paid.”

Although the project may be appealed (almost every wind power project in Ontario has been) Samsung-Pattern confidently announce that construction on the project will begin later this year, and operations will begin early in 2017.

Comments on the project are accepted by the EBR in writing or online until March 18. Comments must relate to environmental impact.

NoNewWind_FB

Ontario quashes citizen participation in electricity issues

04 Monday Jan 2016

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Government halts assistance for citizens, community groups to present views on rate increases and more

Chiarelli's Bill 112: citizens lose the ability to hold utility monopolies to account [Photo Richard Brennan Toronto Star]

Chiarelli’s Bill 112: citizens lose the ability to hold utility monopolies to account [Photo Richard Brennan Toronto Star]

Toronto Star, January 4, 2016

By: Brady Yauch Published on Mon Jan 04 2016

Ontario’s desire for total control over all aspects of the electricity sector is nearly fulfilled.

The push to eliminate dissent and independent review of the province’s energy monopolies has been a decade in the making. Since 2004, many of the province’s largest and most expensive policies were implemented with little to no oversight — at great cost to ratepayers, as the Auditor General forcefully highlighted in her recent annual report.

But Queen’s Park is set to fully take over all decision-making regarding the province’s energy monopolies by solidifying its control over the province’s energy regulator, the Ontario Energy Board (OEB), with the recent passing of Bill 112. In doing so, Ontario is shutting down the last arena of independent public review of the billions of dollars being spent by the province and its many publicly owned utilities.

The legislation, “Strengthening Consumer Protection and Electricity System Oversight Act,” would deny independent intervenors the funds needed to hire the lawyers and experts needed at these hearings, effectively blocking their participation.

Prior to this legislation, any individual ratepayer or organization representing ratepayers — ranging from big, industrial groups to cottage associations or low-income organizations — could apply for funding and act as an intervenor in any rate application. The government would instead replace the independent intervenors with a new government-appointed consumer representative.

In other jurisdictions where this has occurred, the direct cost of this new bureaucracy has been far more expensive than the cost of reimbursing intervenors for their lawyers and consultants. The indirect costs of losing the ability to hold the utility monopolies to account by forcing them to justify their proposed rate increases before the OEB could be much greater still.

One study found that intervenors have been highly successful at paring back the monopolies’ rate requests, their lawyers and consultants costing ratepayers just 2 cents annually while helping to reduce rate increases by $28 per customer. Other studies found that intervenors account for 1 per cent or less of overall regulatory costs, which themselves are a small amount of total electricity costs borne by ratepayers.

Replacing these groups with a government-appointed consumer representative charged with questioning government-owned monopolies eliminates the last remaining voice of independent review of proposals by public monopolies to spend billions of dollars on capital projects.

The province’s new legislation also ensures that any new transmission line can be deemed a “priority project” by the ministry of energy and automatically approved by the OEB. In the past, the OEB would analyze such projects to determine whether they were necessary or cost-effective. Furthermore, the province is considering more legislation that will exempt all government-directed energy plans or projects to be exempt from the Environmental Assessment Act.

The province’s previous moves to sidestep independent review have been costly for ratepayers. The smart meter rollout — which cost ratepayers $2 billion and counting and still isn’t fully functional — was done without any review from the OEB or other regulators. Billions of dollars in contracts have been — and continue to be — given to renewable energy and natural gas generators without any review by the OEB or intervenors. And the long-term energy plans developed by the province’s own energy planning experts — the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) — were never implemented and, instead, were replaced with plans written by the ministry of energy that were, again, never fully reviewed at the OEB and were later criticized by the Auditor General as overly expensive.

More recently, the province collapsed the OPA into another energy agency, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), which is in charge of operating the province’s wholesale electricity market, ensuring that even more political control is embedded in ever more parts of the electricity sector. There is no longer anything “independent” about the Independent Electricity System Operator.

In the end, the OEB and the intervenors were the last voice of criticism that wasn’t on the payroll of the province. By replacing them with a government-led consumer advocate, the province will control every step of decision-making on electricity policy and spending, those pesky checks and balances eliminated at last.

Brady Yauch is an economist and Executive Director of the Consumer Policy Institute (CPI). He has acted as an intervenor at the OEB.

Electricity bills go up again January 1

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

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HydroShame

CBC December 30, 2015

Residential electricity users in Ontario are set to pay more for power in 2016 due to changes that take effect with the flipping of the calendar, according to one energy consultant.

“You can take a look at your electricity bill today,” said Tom Adams as 2015 draws to a close, “and these are the good old days.”

He estimated bills will go up from to six to seven per cent for power consumed starting Jan. 1. That would be on the heels of time-of-use rate hikes that took place Nov. 1, and ahead of more rate hikes planned for May 1, 2016.

The energy minister has said he’s focused on slowing the rate at which the cost of electricity is increasing. A statement from Bob Chiarelli’s office insisted bills are increasing more slowly than in neighbouring jurisdictions.

End of debt charge, clean energy rebate

After Dec. 31, 2015, the debt retirement charge comes off residential electricity bills, although other users such as those in business and industry will continue to pay down the debt incurred by the former Ontario Hydro through at least 2018.

On the same day, the province’s clean energy benefit expires. It was introduced in 2011 and has meant a 10-per-cent rebate on electricity bills.

The two changes do not offset one another, so people will end up paying more for electricity consumed in 2016, said Adams, who estimated the clean energy rebate has typically been double to triple the charge homes paid against the Ontario Hydro debt.

To help those with a low income deal with the loss of that 10-per-cent rebate, the province will begin the Ontario Electricity Support Program starting Jan. 1.

As of late December, people who could be eligible had been slow to apply to that program.

Seven weeks in, the Ontario Energy Board said 19 per cent of the 500,000 users it targeted had applied, which Brian Hewson, its senior manager of strategic policy, called “an excellent response to a program that has been open for such a short period of time.”

All electricity rate payers are being charged $0.0011 per kilowatt-hour to pay for the new credits for those on low incomes.

Province phasing in fixed distribution rates

The hydro bill becomes further complicated, Adams said, as Ontario moves toward a system where every home pays the same, fixed distribution rate.

Starting Jan. 1, the amount of electricity a household consumes will count less and less toward what it’s charged for using the grid.

“The network of poles and wires that are used in your community really don’t vary much in cost depending on how much you use them,” said Hewson of the Ontario Energy Board.

As more Ontarians install solar panels and other technologies, for instance, Hewson said their use of the grid shouldn’t be subsidized by others, who currently pay more for distribution because they use more.

Adams argued that change means a single-bedroom condo that uses very little energy will end up seeing an increase on their bills and a large, single home with many residents will see a decrease.

But large users of electricity will still pay more overall, said Hewson, who said it makes more sense for consumers to focus on the time-of-use line on their electricity bill because that’s where they can consider how they can conserve power.

The energy minister’s office said that a fixed charge will help companies “recover distribution costs” and “remove the disincentive utilities have to encourage customers to conserve.”

For the one in five electricity users that will see their bills go up because of a move to fixed rates, Chiarelli’s office said it will be limited to a hike of 4 per cent per year.

Editor’s note: translation–you pay and pay and pay. Conserve, you pay; use, you pay. Renewables contribute only a fraction of the power Ontario needs but account for a substantial portion of the cost to users. Help for families in “energy poverty”? You’re paying for that, too, though why we are in this situation in energy-rich Ontario (where we are selling surplus power at bargain basement prices) is a mystery of policy and ideology.

Ontario electricity customers fleeced of billions by government: Auditor General

02 Wednesday Dec 2015

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AG doesn't even mention costs of reduced property values, health problems, but finds billions squandered by Wynne and McGuinty governments

AG doesn’t even mention costs of reduced property values, health problems, but finds billions squandered by Wynne and McGuinty governments

Wind, solar more costly than it needs to be

Toronto Star, December 2, 2015

By: Queen’s Park Bureau, Queen’s Park Bureau Chief, Published on Wed Dec 02 2015

Ontario electricity consumers are being zapped to the tune of tens of billions of dollars due to poor government planning, unnecessarily high green energy costs, and shoddy service from Hydro One, says auditor general Bonnie Lysyk.

Lysyk concluded ratepayers forked over $37 billion more than necessary from 2006 to 2014 and will spend an additional $133 billion by 2032 due to the Liberals’ global adjustment electricity fees.

In 14 value-for-money audits for her 773-page annual report delivered Wednesday at Queen’s Park, the auditor took aim at the electricity sector on the eve of Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli’s announcement on next steps for the province’s aging nuclear reactors.

She also highlighted problems with everything from Ontario’s 47 children’s aid societies — including questionable executive expenses — community care access centres, and school buses to the bungled SAMS social assistance computer system and the lack of a plan for dealing with contaminated waste.

But much of her scorn was reserved for the energy ministry, which is overseeing the sell-off of Hydro One, the provincial electricity transmitter.

“Hydro One’s customers have a power system for which reliability appears to be worsening while costs are increasing,” said Lysyk, echoing Ed Clark, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s privatization czar, who has argued Hydro One can and should be a much more professionally run company.

“Customers are experiencing more frequent power outages, mostly because assets aren’t being fully maintained, aging equipment isn’t being consistently replaced and trees near power lines aren’t being trimmed often enough to prevent outages,” she said, lamenting that this will be her final audit of the company since it will no longer fall under her purview once it is private.

At the same time, Ontario’s controversial push to promote wind and solar energy is proving more costly than it needs to be, and energy conservation is proving unnecessarily expensive because the province has a surplus of electricity.

Lysyk estimated consumers could end up paying $9.2 billion more for renewable energy over 20-year contracts issued under the Green Energy Act with guaranteed prices set at double the U.S. market price for wind and at 3.5 times the going rate for solar last year.

“With wind and solar prices around the world beginning to decline around 2008, a competitive process would have meant much lower costs,” Lysyk wrote, noting the government ignored advice from the now-defunct Ontario Power Authority to seek bids for large renewable energy projects.

The auditor shines a light on energy conservation efforts slated to cost $4.9 billion from 2006 to 2020, saying the investment does “not necessarily” lead to savings because excess electricity must be exported at a loss.

“We are concerned,” Lysyk wrote. “Investing in conservation at a time of surplus actually costs us more.”

Read more here

Reasons for Nov 1 hydro rate increase not transparent

17 Saturday Oct 2015

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Wind? You pay. No wind? You pay. And pay.

Wind? You pay. No wind? You pay. And pay.

Reposted from Wind Concerns Ontario

The OEB hides the truth on rate increases

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.

© Parker Gallant,

October 16, 2015

Wind whips Ontario electricity customers: when it actually performs, it costs plenty

06 Tuesday Oct 2015

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Oh come on, the difference between $43K and $1.5 mil isn't that much...
Oh come on, the difference between $43K and $1.5 mil isn’t that much…

Financial Post, October 6, 2015

F or the first time in Ontario’s electricity history the early morning hours of October 3 saw industrial wind turbines outproduce hydroelectricity. Hours 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. showed wind turbines generated 12,481 megawatts (MWh) versus 11,736 MWh of hydroelectricity. Generation from wind turbines represented over 21 per cent of Ontario’s total demand for those five hours.

The advocates of renewable energy will presumably tout this as proof of the wonders of industrial wind power but before they do they should consider the facts related to those five hours and the resulting costs!

Ontario’s total demand averaged 11,663 MW during the time frame, meaning base-load power supplied by nuclear and hydro could have easily coped with the province’s needs, making wind’s production surplus. During those five hours Ontario exported 11,718 MWh at an average price of $3.43 MWh, meaning revenue generated was about $43,000 (less than half a cent per kilowatt hour) whereas the cost for their production (if we attribute all exports to wind) was $1.5 million (at an average price of $123.50/MWh) or 12.4 cents/kWh!

Ontario was probably also spilling clean hydro and perhaps even curtailing wind generation and ratepayers were forced to pick up the cost for those manoeuvres.

Conclusion: Wind continues to whip Ontario’s ratepayers!

Parker Gallant is a retired banker

 

Ontario electricity bills: pain, and more coming

06 Tuesday Oct 2015

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Ontario ratepayer fatigue: covering the costs of bargain basement sale of surplus power from wind and solar

When will it end?

Another month goes by and another $168 million from Ontario ratepayer’s pockets went to subsidize surplus electricity exports to our neighbours in New York, Michigan and Quebec. The month of August saw another 1,759,000 megawatts (MWh) or 1.76 terawatts of excess electricity generation exported. That cost Ontario’s electricity ratepayers $209 million—the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) sold it for $41 million.

The 1.76 terawatts (TWh) sold at the big discount was enough to supply 183 thousand “average” Ontario households with power for a full year. That sale brings our exports to 15.09 TWh for the first 8 months of 2015, enough to supply almost 1.6 million “average” households with power for a full year!

The costs of those export losses fall to all ratepayers; for the eight months ended August 31st, that means a “green energy tax” of $1.4 billion, or about $300 per average household. Quick math will disclose that the average monthly cost is $177 million meaning the total cost for Ontario’s ratepayers in 2015 may reach $2.1 billion or roughly $460 per ratepayer. The 23 TWh we will probably export would have provided 2.4 million ratepayers with their average annual power needs.

What about wind power in all this? In August, wind produced 3.5% (459.3 gigawatts or GWh) of total generation (13.05 TWh) and just over 26% of our exports; solar produced about 29 GWh (not including “embedded generation”). Combined, they represented 27.7% of our exports which begs the question—what benefit do they provide and why do we keep adding more generation at subsidized rates, if we lose money because we must export our surplus generation?

That question is unfortunately not going to be answered any time soon, if we look at the recently released IESO 18 month outlook (Oct 2015 to March 2017).   The IESO report notes:

“About 1,900 MW of new supply – mostly wind and solar generation – will be added to the province’s transmission grid over the Outlook period. By the end of the period, the amount of grid-connected wind generation is expected to increase by 1,300 MW to about 4,500 MW. The total distribution-connected wind generation over the same period is expected to be about 700 MW. Meanwhile, grid-connected solar generation is expected to increase to 380 MW, complementing the embedded solar generation capacity of about 2,200 MW located within distribution networks by the end of the Outlook.”

According to the IESO report, Ontario will add 1,700 MW of generation from wind and solar generation over the next 15 months, which brings wind turbine capacity to 5,200 MW and solar to almost 2,600 MW. This is clearly not needed or dependable.

The IESO report also highlights what we have been told by various business associations that have expressed concern about the effects of rising electricity costs: “For the three months, wholesale customers’ consumption posted a 5.9% decrease over the same months a year prior with Pulp & Paper, Iron & Steel and Petroleum Products accounting for most of the reductions.”

That’s evidence that our primary processors are exiting Ontario, in large part because of high electricity prices, taking jobs with them.

The Ontario Wynne government is bent on ensuring Ontario leads the way to the highest prices of electricity in all of North America; they have only a couple of jurisdictions to overtake.

Time to turn the lights off!

©Parker Gallant

October 4, 2015

Re-posted from Wind Concerns Ontario www.windconcernsontario.ca

South Dundas says NO to expansion of Brinston wind farm

13 Thursday Aug 2015

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Note the comments from the Mayor, regarding the effect of the existing wind power project on the community of Brinston. And for WHAT? More intermittent power Ontario doesn’t need?

Bravo, South Dundas. (Although they not declare themselves Not A Willing Host)

Cornwall NewsWatch, August 12, 2015

No support resolution for South Dundas wind farm

Posted on August 12, 2015 by in News, South Dundas // 2 Comments

In this Aug. 5, 2015 file photo, an EDP Renewables wind turbine slowly turns in the breeze in a field northeast of Dixons Corners. (Newswatch Group/File)

MORRISBURG – A green energy company will likely still go ahead with a proposed wind farm but it won’t be getting South Dundas council support.

Company reps from Spain-based EDP Renewables lobbied one last time Tuesday night for the council support resolution for the South Branch Wind Farm II project.

After distributing 1,100 letters to area property owners, spokesman Ken Little said they had four written comments following their Aug. 5 open house, one of which was critical of the project.

“This is one of the most positive meetings…when you talk about 1,100 mailers distilled down to one negative comment that really speaks a lot,” EDP spokesman Thomas LoTurco added.

There was also a cautionary note from Little about the financial benefits for the township. “A municipal council support resolution…is a chance for South Dundas to lock in the benefits of this project at an early stage. Without the municipal support resolution…we cannot make the same financial commitments to the township that we offered here,” he said.

Little also urged councillors to put aside the provincial politics surrounding green energy and think of EDP Renewables as a business that wants to grow locally. “We’ve worked very hard to build a reputation here.”

But, in a 3-1 vote, councillors decided Tuesday night against sending a so-called council support resolution to the Independent Electricity System Operator on behalf of EDP Renewables.

The lone supporter was Deputy Mayor Jim Locke, who read a prepared statement.

“It’s particularly hard for me as I presented the motion (in 2013) that South Dundas not support any future green energy projects until there was a demonstrated need. By the way, that motion did not say we were ‘unwilling host.’ That handle was added by others,” Locke stated.

“A lot has changed since that time. Green energy is not a fad and is here to stay and will be growing,” the deputy mayor added, in pointing to IESO data showing a gap in electricity needs when nuclear plants are taken offline in 2018-2019 for refurbishment.

“In my opinion, a wind contract at eight or nine cents per kilowatt hour will not cause an increase in hydro rates,” Locke said, in referring to the open house where he said the main concern he heard was skyrocketing hydro bills.

Locke said voters will ask in three years what council did for economic development and the deputy mayor suggested it was a chance to cash in on over $10 million over 25 years in benefits “not to mention the benefits to local business and individuals who live and spend in South Dundas.”

“If we do not support this project and it wants to go ahead anyway we lose $6.5 million dollars right off the bat and I’m not willing to take that gamble,” Locke said.

Coun. Archie Mellan declared a conflict of interest and was not part of the debate nor the vote.

Coun. Bill Ewing suggested the municipal benefit fund proposal of $6.5 million over 25 years not being on the table without a support resolution was akin to ransom or blackmail.

Coun. Marc St. Pierre couldn’t get past the uncertainly of the future, outlining concerns about what would happen with the windmills if the province abandons its green energy plan.

“I’m not disputing any of the results from the public meeting…I think some people were reluctant to voice their opinion at that meeting and I’ve had several calls since as well as several emails,” Mayor Evonne Delegarde.

“I think the existing project…did divide the community and it put strain on a lot of relationships with friends and families and neighbours and I think a further two to three dozen (wind turbines) to the east or to the west…this will put a further strain on those relationships,” the mayor said.

“We’ve taken a lot of pride in the agricultural sector and I think that’s changed the agricultural landscape and it’s going to be a lot more than what we see now,” Delegarde said in closing.

The resolution would have helped EDP get preferential scoring in its bid to build a 75 megawatt wind farm east of the existing South Branch Wind Farm near Brinston.

The project would be roughly 20-30 turbines spread over 10,000 acres – roughly three times the size in area of the South Branch Wind Farm.

Representatives from EDP Renewables, Ken Little and Thomas LoTurco, appeared dumbstruck at what had happened and declined comment saying they needed time to “collect their thoughts.”

 

Power developer EDF claims to have signed leases for St Isidore wind project

22 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in Renewable energy, Wind power

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Ontario Farmer, June 16, 2015

Farmers signing up for St. Isidore wind power project

by Ian Cumming

[Excerpt]

A 10,000-acre windmill project is being proposed near St. Isidore in Prescott County with many farmers already having signed leases.*

The 150-megawatt project is projected to run from Highway 417 north to County Road 10 and 16 in the Nation township, states a press release from the St. Isidore Wind Energy Centre, and affiliate of EDF Renewable Services.

“There are supportive landowners in the area that have already signed up,” said David Thornotn from EDF. …

The St. Isidore Wind Energy Centre is holing an information meeting for the public on June 23rd from 5 to 8 PM in the St. Isidore Arena, said Thornton.

A Ponzi scheme: local farmer

“I have 700 acres right smack in the middle of it and I think the program is stupid,” said a farmer who wished to remain unidentified. “It’s a Ponzi scheme that in the end has you buying your own power. They’ve been phoning me for a couple of years now to sign, but I won’t,” said the farmer. “Others have probably signed up…they want the money now not realizing that in the end it will cost them.”

People who work at the power dam in Cornwall “tell me that you would cry when you see all the water that we dump over the dam because we don’t need the power,” said the farmer. “And when these things become obsolete the companies will be gone or bankrupt…You’re going to have to clean your own tower up.”

…Local landowner groups have become involved over the St. Isidore and other nearby proposed wind projects said Beth Trudeau from that organization.

Municipalities can take action

Their response to the project will focus on making municipal politicians aware of the fact that the Green Energy Act does not prohibit them from ruling as to whether or not the projects can be constructed, she said.

“The municipalities are saying there is nothing they can do, and we intend to show them otherwise,” said Trudeau.

*The wind power generators at the utility or industrial scale are NOT “windmills,” they are wind turbines. This should properly say the wind power developers is “alleged” to have signed agreements with farm owners as it is a common tactic for the developers to encourage people to sign by telling people many others already have; also, at this stage, the agreements are likely an “option” and not a contract.