Eastern Ontario wind farms: no community support

08 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by ottawawindconcerns in Renewable energy, Wind power

Tags

Brinston, community opposition wind farms, Eastern Ontario wind farms, EDP Renewables, Farmers Forum, FIT, IESO, Not a Willing host, Premier Kathleen Wynne, subsidies for wind power, Tom Van Dusen North Dtormon, wind farm, wind mill, wind power, wind power LRP, wind turbines

Eastern Ontario wind farms: “enjoy the horizon while you still can”

From Farmers Forum, August 4, 2015

Community opposition to industrial-scale wind power mounting

Excerpt from “Eastern Limits” by Tom Van Dusen

I’m not sure what it is about North Stormont Township but wind power developers seem to love it.

Their calculations must have discovered more forceful winds than normal stirring the township. On the surface, though it seems no more or less windy than any other rural municipality.

In increasing numbers, developers have been wafting through the township looking for prime sites* to erect their industrial turbines. As in other communities where they’ve landed, their efforts have been the subject of increasing protests, petitions, and testy meetings.

Correctly gauging the way the wind is blowing on the issue, township council has just taken a stand against turbines and their proponents…for what that’s worth. With the provincial government relentlessly pushing wind power, it’s probably not worth much.**

Mayor Dennis Fife has explained that too many ratepayers are against wind projects for council to reasonably support them. Fife has expressed his personal opposition, claiming wind will never match nuclear power generation.

Typical of disgruntled ratepayers is Roger Villeneuve who worries that towers “much taller than any tree I’ve ever seen or will ever see” will soon dominate the local landscape.

…Council was helped along in its decision by Concerned Citizens of North Stormont which circulated an unwilling host petition, demanding that elected representatives back it at a meeting July 28. They did.

In explaining its opposition the citizens’ committee cited the loss of property values and prime agricultural land, increased hydro costs to cover wind power expansion, environmental impact on birds and bats, health issues related to pulsating noise and shadow flicker, and eventual decommissioning costs.

…Developers have been through all this before, in several other Ontario municipalities where they’ve landed. You see, they have carte blanche from the province under the Green Energy Act, trumping any local motions, opposing them. Projects are decided by the province’s Independent Electricity Service Operator [sic–it is “System” Operator] (IESO) with little regard for local concerns.***

…a growing number of wind power opponents are urging councils to use other tools at their disposal…one suggested option is refusing a bylaw to permit road access to turbine sites. ****

…

“Enjoy the natural horizon while there still is one,” says ratepayer Roger Villeneuve.

Wind Concerns Ontario notes:

* What they are looking for is willing landowners. Wind doesn’t really have much to do with it.

** The Not A Willing Host declaration stems directly from a statement by Premier Kathleen Wynne that she wouldn’t force wind power projects on communities that weren’t willing. Her failure to honour her word is underscored by the 89 (soon to be 90?) communities that have protested by municipal resolutions.

*** This is true but the failure of a developer to gain municipal support does not help them in a successful bid. Bids without community support are ranked lower.

**** This is not actually a valid option: several communities have tried this already and what happens is, the developer goes to the Ontario Energy Board which then grants permission to use road allowances. The municipality is then left without a road use agreement and possibility of compensation for the sometimes considerable damage to public roads.

Big Wind’s “Big Bonanza” in Ontario: subsidies benefit a few corporations, not ratepayers

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by ottawawindconcerns in Renewable energy, Wind power

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Consumer Policy Institute, FIT, George Smitherman, North Gower wind farm, Ontario, Ontario government, Ontario Power Authority, Pierre Poilievre, Prowind, subsidies for wind power, wind farm subsidies, wind farms Ontario, wind power, wind power subsidies

From the Financial Post Comment, February 4, by Brady Yauch, executive director the Consumer Policy Institute

When the Ontario government launched its Green Energy Act (GEA ) in 2009, it promised “new green economy jobs” and ” a wide range of economic opportunities.” Then Minister of Energy George Smitherman argued that the GEA would be a boon to Ontarians of all stripes: “We see opportunities in our rural communities for farmers, not just to lease their land for big companies that are the proponents of wind farms, but indeed for clusters of farmers to see themselves as investors in projects…. the emergence of thousands of smaller green energy projects—microgeneration—in urban as well as rural areas.”

Yes, everyone would need to pay a little more for renewable power, the public was told, but the benefits would be widely shared, for the ultimate benefit of all. As it turned out, power rates didn’t go up a little – they soared. And the subsidies weren’t widely shared among the folk – a handful of billion dollar companies pocketed most of them, most of them outside the province.

According to an analysis by the Consumer Policy Institute and Energy Probe, 90% of the wind subsidies went to just 11 companies, 80% of the subsidies went to nine companies with annual revenues over $1-billion, 60% of the subsidies went to six companies with more than $10-billion in annual revenue.

As for the province’s claim that it wants to create an Ontario-based “green economy,” less than 10% of subsidies to wind generators went to small-scale or local owners.

Since 2006, when the province first started subsidizing wind turbines, the province has provided more than $1.92 billion in subsidies. This act of corporate welfare is far from over.

According to the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) – the provincial agency in charge of energy planning and contracting – the province has signed deals for another 2,630 MW of wind energy to come on stream in the coming years, on top of the 3,065 MW already in commercial operation. All of that generation will receive above market rates courtesy of ratepayers for their output. In total, the amount of subsidies to wind producers could hit $8-billion over the next decade and $13-billion over the next 20 years.

The list of companies receiving the lion’s share of subsidies reads like a “who’s who” in Canada’s energy sector and corporate heavyweights. Brookfield Renewable Energy (a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management), Enbridge and Transalta alone accounted for about 38 percent of all subsidies handed out to wind generators. Those companies combined brought in $54-billion in total revenue in 2013.

Samsung, which posted $217-billion in revenue last year, is expected to triple its wind capacity in Ontario – and the subsidies that go along with it – in the next couple of years.

The damage to ratepayers for such policies has been significant. Since 2009 – when the GEA was introduced – ratepayers in Ontario have seen the commodity cost on their energy bills climb dramatically, with the regulated price of power over that time having increased on average by 56%, or just over 9% annually – more than five times the rate of inflation, making electricity price increases worse in Ontario than elsewhere in Canada.

To make matters worse, the high rates being pushed onto ratepayers has lowered demand for electricity across the province in recent years. That means Ontario now has a significant surplus of power, which it then exports to neighbouring jurisdictions at a loss. Ontario ratepayers are now subsidizing the energy consumption of households in America and other provinces.

Nearly everyone is losing when it comes to renewable energy in Ontario – except for those few companies that planted industrial wind turbines across the province and are receiving billions in subsidies for their effort.

Brady Yauch is an economist and the executive director of Consumer Policy Institute. bradyyauch@consumerpolicyinstitute.org

NOTE from Ottawa Wind Concerns: The Library of Parliament, on request from MP Pierre Poilievre, estimated that IF the wind power project proposed for the North Gower-Richmond area of Ottawa by Germany-based Prowind had gone ahead (it almost reached approval), the 20-MW project would have cost Ontario ratepayers $4.8 million per year.

Are Ontario wind power subsidies keeping Florida bills low? (Yes)

24 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by ottawawindconcerns in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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electricity bills Ontario, FIT, Florida Power and Light, gas plants, gas-fired power plants, hydro bills, natural gas, NextEra, NextEra Energy Inc, Ontario Power Authority, renewables, subsidies for wind farms, subsidies for wind power, wind power developers Ontario, wind power Ontario

Ontario: keeping Florida’s fossil-fuel power bills low

*Florida: plenty of natural gas-fired power. No wind*

Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), the largest subsidiary in NextEra Energy Inc’s portfolio with 4.7 million customers, is doing a fantastic job of keeping their rates low. In fact they have had declining rates for a few years as noted in this post from one of their webpages: “Bills Are Decreasing – Again! Since 2009, FPL’s typical 1,000-kWh customer bill has decreased by 7 percent. And in January 2015, FPL expects to decrease the typical residential customer bill by nearly $2 a month.”

While the FPL customers can currently consume 1,000 kWh a month at an all-in price of 10.2 cents/kWh, rates in Ontario have been increasing at about 10% annually. That 1,000 kWh purchased from Toronto Hydro will set you back $169.00 (65% higher) versus $102.00 from FPL. The natural and first inclination is to believe that it is probably due to their sources of electricity and perhaps their efficiency levels; while the latter is probably true (they claim 8,900 employees versus the 20,000 plus we have in Ontario) their sources of electricity only include a passing nod at renewables and then only “solar” which seems reasonable in the Sunshine State! The pie chart showing FPL’s “Fuel mix & purchased power” indicates at least 75% of electricity supplied to their ratepayers is fossil fuel-based. Solar provides just over a half of 1%!

*NextEra power sources: barely a nod to renewables in the U.S.*

Look at the parent company, NextEra: it generates electricity from wind turbines where the company can find subsidies. They rushed to Ontario to snap up at least six Ontario Power Authority (OPA) contracts with a rated capacity of just over 482 MW (megawatts). A quick calculation of that rated capacity discloses Ontario’s ratepayers will pay a lot of money to NextEra over the next 20 years, which NextEra can use to either pay dividends to their shareholders, or allow some of the revenue used to keep rates low in the Sunshine State for Canadian “Snowbirds.”

The 482 MW of rated capacity should produce power at 29% of capacity, which means they should generate about 1.2 million MWh (megawatt hours). The equation therefore is as follows: 482 MW @ 29% X 8760 hours in a year X $135 per MWh x 20 years = $3.2 billion. That means revenue per FPL customer of about $35 per year. If only $2 finds its way to FPL’s customers, it will help to keep the rates down.

Ironically, Ontario’s Snowbirds pay much higher rates at home; no wonder Canadians own more property in Florida than citizens from the next five nationalities combined! Too bad their winter electricity bills will be waiting for them when they get back home.

©Parker Gallant

October 23, 2014

The views expressed are those of the author.

Reposted from Wind Concerns Ontario http://www.windconcernsontario.ca

Wind power: a “wolf in green clothing”

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by ottawawindconcerns in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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cost-benefit renewables, Feed In Tariff subsidy, FIT, green energy, PTC, renewable energy, renewable power, subsidies wind power, The Hill, Warren Buffett, wind energy, wind farm, wind farms environment, wind power

It’s clean, it’s “green,” and it wants your land and your money too

Here from The Hill, a US blog for policy-makers, a posting on wind power and the US form of subsidy, the Production Tax Credit.

July 25, 2014, 10:00 am

Wind power production tax credit: Wall St. wolf in green clothing

By Curtis Ellis, The Hill, July 25, 2014

The tax incentive for wind power expired last year, and the battle over its extension is now underway. Opponents say the wind power production tax credit, PTC, is a wasteful boondoggle while supporters say it’s crucial for renewable energy and jobs. The Sierra Club calls it “one of the best bets we’ve made on clean, domestic energy.”

But it’s a misplaced bet. The PTC actually blocks the green energy technologies that hold the most promise. Rather than helping an infant industry, the PTC is a handout to Wall Street.

Congress created the PTC in 1992, a tax credit of roughly 2 cents per kilowatt-hour of wind electricity, to nurture the infant wind energy industry. Government incentives to promote crucial industries are time-honored. That’s not the problem with the PTC.What’s important is that only big investors who want to offset tax liabilities on other investments need apply. The PTC can only be taken against “passive income” – income from other investments. Private equity firms put together investors who need a tax write-off courtesy of the PTC. Warren Buffett admits he uses the PTC to lower his Berkshire taxes: “we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them.”

The PTC doesn’t help the average Joe who wants to put a small wind turbine on his ranch to generate electricity and reduce the taxes he pays on his farm income.

But while the PTC boosts Wall Street investment schemes in large-scale wind farms, the fact is small-scale, individually owned generation facilities hold the most promise for renewable energy.

Noted environmentalist Bill McKibben writes, “One of the great side effects of moving to renewable power is that we will replace vulnerable, brittle centralized systems that are too big to fail with spread out democratic energy sources.” Unfortunately, the PTC only encourages more “brittle centralized systems.”

California’s Local Clean Energy Alliance (which includes the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Sierra Club) concurs. It’s report, Community Power, states “local, decentralized generation of electricity offers many benefits to California’s communities relative to large central-station solar or wind power plants in remote areas.”

The Institute for Local Self Reliance, a green energy cheerleader, says renewables work best “at small scales across the country,” what’s known as distributed generation, “a network of independently-owned and widely dispersed renewable energy generators” rather than “a 20th century grid dominated by large, centralized utilities.”

In fact the Institute explicitly says the PTC is a significant barrier to greater investment in renewable energy. Removing this barrier “makes smaller projects more accessible to the local community, and draws local investors back into the process,” says John Farrell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Utilities are also taking local-scale renewable energy seriously. A report by the Edison Electric Institute, Disruptive Challenges expects small-scale solar and wind “to challenge and transform the electric utility industry” with “adverse impacts on revenues, as well as on investor returns.”

David Crane, CEO of NRG Energy, a wholesale power company that operates coal-fired plants, told Blooomberg Businessweek “the grid will become increasingly irrelevant as customers move toward decentralized homegrown green energy.”

So, if local-scale wind and solar generated close to the end user makes the most sense, why do we have a PTC pushing large-scale wind farms? It’s a Wall Street play.

Environmentalists supporting the PTC mean well, but they fail to see the wolf of Wall Street hiding beneath the green clothes. Ironically, the national green organizations are fighting for the kind of massive generating stations and power lines their local chapters often fight against.

The PTC is an anachronism and an obstacle to developing the decentralized, independently owned power generation system appropriate for wind, solar and other renewables.

Anyone who believes in renewable energy should be happy to see the PTC expire. It’s time to replace this tax write-off for the financial services cabal with something that benefits everyone.

Ellis is executive director of the American Jobs Alliance.

Wind and solar power: the hidden costs

20 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by ottawawindconcerns in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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cost of wind power, cost-benefit analysis wind power, electricity generation, Feed In Tariff, FIT, hydro bills Ontario, Ontario electricity bills, renewable energy, renewable energy generation, renewable energy projects, renewable power, Robert Lyman, Scott Luft, solar power, wind farms, wind power

Wind power: not free

Here, from Ottawa-based energy-specialist economist Robert Lyman, a quick look at what many people don’t know (and aren’t getting told by the government or the wind power lobby) about the costs of generating power from wind and solar.

A must-read.

THE HIDDEN COSTS OF ONTARIO RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY GENERATION

Ontario residents can be forgiven if they fail to understand the public debate during the current (2014) provincial election about the costs of different types of electricity generation and why these have caused electricity rates for consumers to rise so much over the past ten years. The complexity of the system makes it difficult to explain the costs associated with one source of supply, namely the renewable energy generation (industrial wind turbines and solar power generators). In this note, I will nonetheless try to explain in layperson’s terms why these costs are significant.

Electricity supply in Ontario takes place within the framework of the policy and legislative framework established by the Ontario government, an important part of which is the Green Energy and Economy Act of 2009 (GEA). Historically, the goal of Ontario electricity policy was to keep electricity rates for consumers as low as possible consistent with the goal of maintaining adequate and reliable supply. Within the current framework, however, that is no longer the goal. The GEA seeks to stimulate investment in renewable energy projects (such as wind, solar, hydro, biomass and biogas) and to increase energy conservation. To do this, it:

Changed the review process for renewable energy projects to reduce environmental assessment and hasten approvals
Created a Feed-in-Tariff that the Independent Electricity Systems Operator (IESO) must pay, guaranteeing the specific rates for energy generated from renewable sources (typically, the rates are fixed for the full term of the twenty year contracts, with inflation escalators)
Established the right to connect to the electricity grid for renewable energy projects and gave renewable energy source preferential access over other sources of generation
Implemented a “smart” grid to support the development of renewable energy projects
Eliminated local approval requirements that local governments previously could impose on renewable energy projects

The guaranteed rates paid under the FIT system are not negotiated based upon the actual costs of production. In fact, the actual costs of production are largely unknown. …

Read the full analysis here: THE HIDDEN COSTS OF ONTARIO RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY GENERATION

New procurement plan for large power projects

14 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by ottawawindconcerns in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

FIT, subsidies for wind power Ontario, wind farm North Gower, wind farm Ottawa, wind farm Richmond

As we’ve been saying, the new “procurement” process for large-scale power projects (over 500 kW) has not yet been announced, but there are enough clues in the recently released Long-Term Energy Plan that we have an idea of what’s coming.

First of all, the Feed In Tariff program is gone for large projects; in its place is a Request for Proposal or RFP system, in which applicants will have to meet a number of requirements and rack up points. Those of us who respond to government RFPs will be familiar with the process.

The LTEP outlines several principles that will be applied when launching future energy procurement programs:

follow provincial and/or regional electricity system need;
consider municipal electricity generation preferences;
engage early and regularly with local and Aboriginal communities;
provide opportunity for a diverse set of participants;
identify clear procurement needs, goals and expectations; and
encourage innovative technologies and approaches, including consideration of proposals that integrate energy storage with renewable energy generation.

As stated in the 2013 LTEP, the government plans to make available up to 300 MW of wind, 140 MW of solar, 50 MW of bioenergy and 50 MW of hydroelectric capacity in 2014.

Note that the wording is that the government will “consider” municipal generation preferences, but that doesn’t mean that if you don’t ant a wind power project, for example, you get to say “no.” Note the importance of the regional energy plans, and also the need to “engage” with local communities.

Again, Prowind has indicated to us that they will be reviewing the new requirements and then reapplying.

The people of Ottawa, and specifically North Gower and Richmond, are ready to act to protect our community, our health, our local economy, and our property values, from a subsidy-seeking power project that is NOT NEEDED.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

P O Box 3 North Gower ON K0A 2T0

Germany to slash Feed in Tariffs subsidies for wind

09 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by ottawawindconcerns in Renewable energy, Wind power

≈ 1 Comment

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cost-benefit analysis wind power, FIT, Germany, subsidies for wind power

Let’s hope this trend comes to Ontario, too; Ontario has always said it was following the example of Germany in pursuing “renewable” sources of power. Can we hope the government will now see what has gone so very wrong?

Ottawa Wind Concerns

~ A safe environment for everyone

Tag Archives: FIT

Eastern Ontario wind farms: no community support

Community opposition to industrial-scale wind power mounting

Big Wind’s “Big Bonanza” in Ontario: subsidies benefit a few corporations, not ratepayers

Are Ontario wind power subsidies keeping Florida bills low? (Yes)

Ontario: keeping Florida’s fossil-fuel power bills low

Wind power: a “wolf in green clothing”

Wind power production tax credit: Wall St. wolf in green clothing

Wind and solar power: the hidden costs

New procurement plan for large power projects

Germany to slash Feed in Tariffs subsidies for wind