Tag Archives: renewables

NY wind farm problems a sign of what’s ahead for North Stormont?

13 Thursday Sep 2018

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September 13, 2018

Residents in Arkwright, NY, are shocked at the noise and environmental disturbance from a wind power project, which just started operation.

The project developer and operator is Spain-based EDP, the same company that runs the South Branch project in Brinston and which is planning the contentious Nation Rise power project in North Stormont.

Residents had hoped the project would be cancelled when the new Ontario government cancelled three other wind power projects, but the IESO claims the project–which is under appeal–has met all its contractual milestones.

Here is the news story with resident complaints of never-ending noise and visual disturbance.

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OBSERVER Photo by Jo Ward A large crowd fills the Arkwright Town Hall, as complaints of noise are heard regarding the wind turbines.

ARKWRIGHT– This week saw the powering up of the wind turbines in Arkwright, and the area received its first taste of what a wind farm is like when fully operational.

Despite what many deem as good news, others were not impressed.

“We were up at the lean-tos,” Joni Riggles, a concerned citizen stated. “I am so upset, EDP was asked not to put turbines within viewshot by the county planning board. It is a nightmare, a sonic nightmare, a visual nightmare. It sounded like sneakers in a laundromat. The campground is surrounded, it’s a toxic environment. Who’s going to want to camp here?”

Carrie Babcock, an Arkwright resident said, “It’s like jetliners surrounding my house. It’s a form of noise pollution. It’s awful. How can you help me move away from here? How do I get out of here and still have some property value?”

“I could be sitting on my couch reading and all I have to do is barely crack open a window and it sounds like a jet that’s going by that never goes by. We were told by these people everyday that you’ll never know they’re even there, and if you think that’s not a problem, you’re taking money from the windmill people,” Doug Zeller, another resident added.

“What do you want us to do about it?” Councilman Larry Ball asked. “What do you want us to do about it today?”

“Take them down,” Riggles voiced.

“That’s not going to happen,” Fred Norton, town supervisor, and others on the board responded.

In response to Riggles’ original question, Norton did note that the county gave a release to the developer allowing them to put their windmills there.

Beyond the noise complaints, a letter from Dorothy Fogelman-Holland was read by her husband, citing issues with cell phone interference. Within the letter she claims that there have been times, no matter the day or to who or what type of phone she calls, she’s unable to make a connection. These incidents are sometimes 11 calls being made consecutively and none of them connecting. She states that the issues started in July and are ongoing. Both she and her husband have spoken with their carrier and the carrier has found no issue with their phones or with the towers.

The problem for her is that she undergoes at home dialysis care, and is in need of a constant outside line in case she was to need emergency services. Fogelman-Holland is concerned that others might be in the same predicament with their phones, and that if someone is unable to make a call to 911 that it could be the difference of a life.

Concern was also raised with health issues the turbines might cause. In response Ingalls reminded citizens that, if there’s a complaint or health issue with them, the company has a hot line on the door of the Arkwright Town Hall that has been up throughout construction. If there is an issue they want to hear about it so that they can address it; those messages are checked every day.

There is a fund-raiser/information Brunch event Saturday September 15 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the arena in Finch, hosted by the Concerned Citizens of North Stormont.

Rural Ontario heartbreak: wind power invasion was all for nothing

13 Wednesday Jun 2018

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June 13, 2018

Many analysts and commentators are now looking over the ruins of the Ontario government from the election last week, and pointing to the McGuinty-Wynne government’s disastrous handling of the electricity sector, particularly the ideology-driven push for renewables, as a factor.

Two Auditors General said Ontario had never done a cost-benefit analysis for its aggressive support of industrial-scale wind power and that we were paying too much — far too much — for the power. Which was intermittent and unreliable to boot, so it could never do what they said it would.

Now, Ottawa-based energy insider Steve Aplin says, not only was large-scale wind expensive it was also a waste of time: wind power has never been shown to reduce CO2 or carbon emissions.

Never.

Wind did not replace the power produced by Ontario’s shuttered coal plants, gas and nuclear did.

Read Mr Aplin’s excellent analysis here, but remember, a 100-megawatt power project was just approved for North Stormont, just south of Ottawa, and an approval is pending for another project east, in The Nation.

Neither community wants the power projects, there are significant environmental concerns, and Ontario doesn’t need the intermittent power produced out-of-phase with demand.

For a list of other comments on the election and the role of Ontario’s renewable power program, please go to http://www.windconcernsontario.ca

 

Ottawa area community groups petition Queen’s Park today

30 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by in Health, Renewable energy, Wind power

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Concerned Citizens of North Stormont leader Margaret Benke, Same rules for everybody.

April 30, 2018

The Ontario government realized there were inadequacies in their protocols for wind turbine noise and the assessment procedures needed in the approval process for new wind power projects, so they changed them.

And then gave the five newest wind power projects the option not to use the new rules.

As a result, the powerful power generators in projects that received contracts in 2016 but which are not yet built — in fact four don’t have Renewable Energy Approval yet — will be out of compliance with the new regulations the minute they start operating.

Four Ontario community groups think that’s not right.

They’re heading to Queen’s Park today as three MPPs present thousands of signatures on a Petition, asking the government to follow its own rules.

Representatives of Ottawa-area Concerned Citizens of North Stormont and Save The Nation will join their colleagues from Dutton Dunwich Opponents of Wind Turbines (DDOWT) and Wallaceburg Area Wind Concerns as the Petition is presented in the Legislature.

The Petition is related to the creation of “Transition Provisions” by the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) in the Renewable Energy Approval process, which allows wind power developers to ignore new noise modelling guidelines, even for the newest unapproved power projects.

“The MOECC recognized that the previous requirements for turbine noise modelling were inadequate and they revised them,” says Bonnie Rowe, spokesperson for Dutton Dunwich Opponents of Wind Turbines (DDOWT), whose citizen group has applied for a Judicial Review of the Transition. “The noise modelling requirements are important to protect health and safety for people living near the turbines but now, the government has allowed the developers for the new projects to use the old ones — we think that’s wrong.

“If the government sets rules, especially for health, then everyone should have to follow them, no exceptions.”

Wind turbine noise has been linked to sleep disturbance, which in turn leads to other, serious health problems. According to Wind Concerns Ontario, documents received from the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change #MOECC show that thousands of reports of excessive noise remain unresolved, and not responded to in Ontario.

MPPs presenting the petitions Monday are: Jeff Yurek, from Elgin-Middlesex-London where the Strong Breeze Wind Power Project is proposed for Dutton Dunwich; Monte McNaughton, from Lambton-Kent-Middlesex where the Otter Creek Wind Farm is proposed for the Wallaceburg area; and Jim McDonell, MPP for Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry, who will be delivering petitions on behalf of the North Stormont area where the Nation Rise Wind Farm is proposed, and also the Municipality of The Nation, where the Eastern Fields Wind Power Project is proposed.

Concerned Citizens of North Stormont: Margaret Benke  macbenke@aol.com

Ottawa Wind Concerns: ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

Most Ontario wind farms are foreign-owned: Wind Concerns Ontario

16 Monday Apr 2018

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April 16, 2018

The rainbow didn’t end in Ontario after all …

Wind Concerns Ontario, the coalition of more than 30 community groups and hundreds of individuals and families, published a review of the ownership of large-scale Ontario wind power projects yesterday, and revealed that nearly 80 percent of the power projects are owned by offshore corporations.

The developers were attracted by the tax breaks, subsidies and other incentives offered by the Ontario government.

Two new wind power projects currently have contracts in the Ottawa area: “Eastern Fields” in The Nation, proposed by foreign-owned RES Canada, and “Nation Rise” in North Stormont by EDP Renewables of Spain. EDPR also operates the South Branch project in Brinston, south-east of Ottawa, which was originally developed by Germany-based Prowind.

Here is the article reposted from Wind Concerns Ontario’s website at www.windconcernsontario.ca

Follow the money … out of Ontario

A profile of who’s who in Ontario wind power development

Tax benefits and subsidies were important incentives

 

With the recent announcement that the Canada Pension Plan decided to purchase some of U.S. energy giant NextEra’s wind and solar portfolio (a $741M CAD deal that also involves assuming $800M in debt), many people are suddenly noticing ownership of Canada’s renewable power sector.

A popular view of the wind industry in Ontario is that it is composed predominantly of Canadian companies in an “infant industry” that needs government subsidies to survive. The reality only becomes clear when one looks behind the scenes at the actual participants in the industry.

Ontario’s industrial wind generators enjoy the benefits of many federal and provincial programs, all of which were intended to ease their access to financing and improve investors’ returns. The list of special incentives is a long one, but here are the five most important:

 

  • The implementation of special feed-in-tariff (FIT) rates far above the market rates received by conventional energy producers; these rates started at $135 per megawatt hour (MWh) and have only recently declined to $125 per MWh;
  • The guarantee of these rates for the twenty-year life of the contracts;
  • Granting wind and other renewable energy sources priority access, or “first-to-the-grid” rights, requiring the Independent Electricity System Operator to take their production whenever it was available, even when that meant curtailing the purchase of other (often cheaper) generation or dumping surplus energy at distressed prices on export markets;
  • Special tax benefits, including the federal government’s accelerated capital cost allowances and the Canadian Renewable and Conservation Expenses allowance and the Ontario government’s cap on the property taxes that industrial wind turbines pay to local municipalities;
  • Other subsidies, including the federal government ECOenergy for Renewable Power Program, $1.4 billion over five years in Budget 2017, and continuing large research and development assistance.

 

As a result, the Ontario wind industry, in general, has found the “pot of gold”, a level of income and wealth that far exceeds its general image. To illustrate this, let us examine some of the most prominent firms in the industry.

Here is a summary of the companies active in Ontario both as developers and operators, with financial statistics gleaned to the best of our knowledge and ability.

 

 

Acciona: With headquarters in Madrid, Spain, Acciona develops and builds power projects for itself and third-party companies in 20 countries worldwide. In Ontario Acciona operates the 76-MW Ripley wind power project. As part of its “wind power value chain” the company also manufactures some turbine components. Revenue in 2017 was €7.2B and net income was €220M or $350M CAD. Chairman is José Manuel Entrecanales; no compensation data is available.

Boralex: HQ France. Ontario Projects are Port Ryerse (10 MW) and the proposed/contracted Otter Creek (50 MW). Revenue from energy sales in 2017 to September 30 were $285M CAD. Total equity: $2.7B USD. Compensation for CEO Patrick Lemaire was $1.2M CAD in 2016.

Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners: Headquartered in Bermuda with an office in Toronto, Brookfield is “multi-technology, globally diversified, owner and operator of renewable power assets” which includes more than 70 wind power projects around the world. In Ontario the company operates the 189-MW Prince project, Comber (165 MW) and Gosfield (50.6 MW) Brookfield also owns 51% of US-based Terraform Power, which operates the Raleigh Wind Farm. North American revenue in 2017 was $1B USD. CEO is Sachin Shah; 2016 compensation was $3.8M USD.

 

EDF Renewables: This company is associated with EDF or Electricité du France, the Power utility in France. Headquarters for EDF Renewables is in San Diego, California; the company operates in Canada as EDF EN Canada (EDF Energie Nouvelles). EDF EN Canada currently has a contract for the 60-MW Romney Wind power project. CEO is Tristan Grimbert. No further financial data is available.

EDP Renewables : EDPR is a division of EDP or Energias du Portugal. The company’s headquarters are in Oviedo, Spain. EDPR claims to be the world’s fourth largest wind power developer. In 2017, the company states, it produced 27,600 GWh of power from wind. In Ontario, it operates the 30-MW South Branch project between Ottawa and Cornwall, and currently has a contract for the 100-MW Nation Rise project in North Stormont, south of Ottawa. Revenues in 2017 worldwide were €1.3 M or $2M CAD. CEO of EDPR is Joᾶo Manso Neta; there is no compensation data available for the CEO. In June 2017 it was announced that the CEO of parent company EDP was being investigated on corruption charges related to power contracts; the CEO of EDPR was also being investigated, but there has been no news since of any charges.

Engie: Based in France, with North American Headquarters in Houston, Texas, and an Ontario office in Markham. This company bought AIM Power Gen (operated by Mike Crawley who is known to many Ontarians, and is now VP at Northland) which had become GDF Suez; it now operates the wind power projects at Cultus-Clear Creek Frogmore (30-MW), Harrow (40 MW), Erieau (99 MW), East St. Clair (99MW), Plateau (27 MW), and Point Aux Roches (49 MW). Revenue for 2016 was €13M or $20M CAD. CEO is Isabelle Kocher, whose 2016 compensation was €2.8M or $4.4M CAD.

Horizon Wind: See EDPR. The Horizon “Legacy” company operates the 10-MW Ernestown Wind project near Kingston.

Invenergy: This U.S.-based company has its headquarters in Chicago, and offices in Toronto, Denver and Mexico City plus a European office in Warsaw. It currently manages or has developed 82 wind power projects. Net worth is approximately $1B USD. Current Ontario project: Strong Breezes Dutton Dunwich (57.5 MW). Invenergy also developed the 78-MW Raleigh Wind project, which it sold to TerraForm and Sun Edison. Invenergy had proposed a project in North Perth, but the contract with IESO was terminated when it became impossible for the company to meet the contracted amount of power generation, due in part to citizen action and community opposition.

Longyuan Canada Renewables/China Longyuan Power Group: With 10,000 wind turbines worldwide in its portfolio producing 17,000 MW of power, the China Longyuan Group is the world’s largest wind power developer. The company also produces power from coal, and has minor interests in thermal, biomass and solar. Wholly owned subsidiary Longyuan Canada Renewables is headquartered in Toronto with nine employees, and operates the 91.4-MW Dufferin Wind power project (Melancthon). President is Zhu Dong; no compensation data is available. The company recently applied for an amendment to its renewable energy approval, to install optimization software which will increase power output but not exceed its nameplate capacity of 99MW. Operating profits for China Longyuan in 2017 were CNY 8.3B ($1.7B CAD), up from 2016 due to higher prices for coal. The President/General Manager is Li Enyi whose 2016 compensation is reported by Bloomberg as CNY 1,074,00 ($219,000 CAD)

NextEra Energy: NextEra Energy Canada is a division of NextEra Energy Inc. The company’s headquarters are in Juno Beach, Florida FL with a Canadian office on Bay Street in Toronto. NextEra operates the following Ontario wind power projects under contract to the provincial government: Conestogo (22.9 MW), Jericho (149 MW), Adelaide (60 MW), Bluewater (60 MW), Summerhaven (124.4 MW), Goshen (102 MW), Cedar Point II (100 MW), Bornish (73.5MW), and East Durham (22 MW). Income of the parent company was $5.3B USD; president and CEO James Robo earned a base salary in 2016 of $1.3 M USD but topped it up with incentives, bonuses and stock options for a total compensation package of $16M USD. On April 2, 2018, it was announced that the Canada Pension Plan had agreed to purchase four NextEra wind facilities, plus two solar projects, in Ontario; the deal is subject to Canadian regulatory approval and if approved, may close in the second quarter of 2018.

RES Group, operating in Canada as RES Canada: Headquarters are in the UK with a Canadian office in Montreal. RES’ slogan is “Power for Good.” The company boasts a portfolio of more than 7,000 wind turbines and asset management of 2 GW of wind power generating facilities. RES Group was the subject of a BBC documentary called “Blown Apart” which featured an RES employee “Rachel” who infiltrated a village community with dreams of a green future for her community, only to be revealed eventually as a corporate operative trying to get people to sign wind turbine leases. In Ontario, RES was involved in construction of South Kent Wind, Brooke-Alvinston, Grand Valley 3, and Gunn’s Hill, and as a developer, has a contract for the 32-MW Eastern Fields in The Nation, near Ottawa. RES bills itself as a full-service provider, offering asset management and project design services. No data found on earnings, and no information on compensation for CEO Ivor Catta.

Pattern/Pattern Energy Group: The company’s slogan is “Transitioning the world to Renewable Energy.” Headquarters are in San Francisco; the company operates the Belle River (see Samsung), and North Kent projects in Ontario, is a partner in K2Wind, and is constructing the Henvey Inlet 300-megawatt project. 2017 revenues were $411.3 million USD. CEO/President is Michael Garland, whose 2016 compensation was $2.7 MM ($430.7K salary, $456K bonuses, and $1.8MM stock).

Prowind: Prowind is a very small player but managed to attract attention for its 18-MW Gunn’s Hill project near Woodstock, which it claims is a totally community endeavour. In fact, the lone community member in the investment leadership group went on to be president of Prowind Canada, and other “community” members were Toronto-based environmental organizations. The community launched an appeal of the REA, but was not successful. Prowind is a subsidiary of Prowind GmBH of Germany; president and CEO in North America is Frank Mascia and chair is Johannes Busmann. No financial data is available.

Samsung Renewable Energy: The company is a division of Samsung C&T Investment Trading Group. Samsung C&T is headquartered in Korea; there is an office in Canada located in Mississauga. Samsung developed the huge 270-MW K2 Wind project with Pattern and Capital Power, (its share was sold in 2016 to insurance giant ManuLife, the Alberta Teachers Retirement Fund and Toronto-based Axium). Samsung operates three wind power projects in Ontario: Belle River (100 MW) , Armow (180 MW), and South and North Kent (270 and 100 MW respectively). Samsung, also known as “the Korean consortium,” was given an extraordinary contract by the Ontario government in 2010 to buy $9.7B CAD worth of electricity. The contract amount was slashed by a third in 2013; the government claimed Samsung had missed some deadlines, but the fact is, that much power was not (is not) needed. Canadian vice-president is Steve Cho; Samsung C&T president and CEO is Chi H. Choi; no compensation data is available. Samsung C&T operating profits in 2017 were 881.3B won or $1.05B CAD.

Saturn Power: Saturn operates the 10-megawatt Gesner project. It is a private company so no financials are available; headquarters are in Baden, Germany.

Terraform Power: Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, Terraform is the “owner and operator of a 2,600 MW diversified portfolio of high-quality solar and wind assets, primarily in the U.S., underpinned by long-term contracts” which includes the 78-MW Raleigh Wind project, which it purchased from Invenergy. Revenue for 2017 according to the company pro forma was estimated to be $585 M USD. CEO is John Stinebaugh; no compensation data available.

Veresen Inc.: Veresen was the owner and operator of the 20-MW Grand Valley 1 wind power project; the company was recently acquired by Pembina in 2017 for $6.4B CAD.

WPD Canada: This is a wholly owned subsidiary of WPD Europe/WPD AG, a private company headquartered in Bremen, Germany. The Canadian office is in Mississauga. The company is active in 18 countries and says it has installed 1,700 wind turbines. In Ontario, WPD operates the Springwood (8.2 MW), Whittington (6 MW), Napier (4 MW) and Sumac Ridge (10.25 MW) projects, and has a contract (currently being disputed in the courts by a citizens’ group) for the 18-MW White Pines project in Prince Edward County. WPD Power’s CEO is Dr. Gernot Blanke; no compensation data is available

 

Canadian companies: the minority

Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp.: Algonquin is described as a Canadian utility involved in the generation, transmission and distribution of power. The headquarters are in Oakville, Ontario. At present in Ontario, the company’s wholly owned subsidiary Windlectric Inc. sold half its lone wind project to Newfoundland-based construction company Pennecon to build a 75-MW wind power project on Amherst Island. Algonquin Power is estimated to have $10B CAD in assets. With a five-year return of 73% the company has been the darling of Canadian investors but has tumbled with a more recent 1-year return of 2.06%. CEO of Algonquin is Ian Robertson, whose 2016 compensation was $3.5M according to Reuters; Pennecon’s president is David Mitchell for whom no compensation data is available.

BluEarth Renewables: With headquarters in Calgary, Alberta, BluEarth is described as a “private independent” company whose major shareholder is in fact the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. It operates two wind power projects in Ontario: Bow Lake Wind (60-MW), and St Columban (33 MW). In February 2018, BluEarth announced a deal with Veresen in which it would acquire an interest in three Ontario wind power projects, with a view to own and operate, in the long term.   Net worth is estimated at $10B CAD. President and CEO is Grant Arnold; no compensation data is available.

Capital Power: Based in Edmonton, Capital is involved in a variety of power generating enterprises, including wind; Capital is a partner in K2 Wind, and operates the 40-MW Kingsbridge project in Ontario. Revenues in 2017 were $1B and net income was $144M. CEO is Brian Vaasjo whose 2016 compensation was $2.9M.

Enbridge: The company is best known as a producer of fossil fuels in Canada. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta the company says it transports, generates and distributes energy, in that order. It operates 16 wind power projects in North America, including the Talbot (98.9 MW) and Underwood (181.5 MW) power facilities in Ontario. Adjusted earnings for 2017 were $3.2B CAD of which “green power” earnings were $101MM. CEO until recently was Al Monaco who is listed as one of Canada’s 100 highest paid executives with a base salary of $1.377MM and total compensation of $11.391MM.

Kruger Energy: Kruger is a family-owned company headquartered in Montreal that is involved in paper, paperboard recycling, and energy. Kruger Energy was founded in 2004 to develop power projects in Canada, and currently operates the 101.2-megawatt facility at Port Alma, and the 99.4-MW Kruger Chatham Wind Farm in Ontario. The company also put forward a proposal in 2015 for another Chatham-Kent facility. The company is privately held by the Kruger family. CEO is Jean Roy; no compensation data is available.

Northland: Northland is a rare bird in wind power development in Ontario, with headquarters in Toronto. The company operates two wind power projects at present: McLean’s Mountain on Manitoulin Island (60 MW), and the Grand Bend facility in Zurich (100 MW). Profits for 2017 were up 37% to $1.2B CAD, with net income up 45% to $276 MM. Northland is involved in two offshore wind projects in Europe and owns 100% of the Nordsee wind power project. Northland is also involved in solar projects in Ontario. CEO is John Brace whose 2016 compensations was $1.9MM CAD ($473K salary, $1MM stock, and $9,000 “other”). Also on Northland’s executive team is Mike Crawley, former CEO of AIM PowerGen and also famously chair of a McGuinty government panel that looked at a mix of energy resources for Ontario, and he was later president of the Ontario Liberal Party, and subsequently, the Liberal Party of Canada. Mr. Crawley’s 2016 compensation was $923K.

Suncor: The company describes itself as an “integrated energy company.” With headquarters in Calgary, Alberta, Suncor currently operates four wind power projects in Canada, one of which is the Adelaide power project. But the company used to own more: in 2015, however, Suncor announced it was divesting almost all its wind assets, particularly in Ontario, and so sold off Ripley and Cedar Point as well as its share in the Kent Breeze project. Funds from operations in 2017 were $3B CAD. CEO is Steven Williams who is also listed by Canadian Business as one of Canada’s 100 highest paid executives. His base salary in 2017 was $1.375M, and total compensation was $11.482M.

TransAlta: Based in Calgary, TransAlta owns and operates the wind power project on Wolfe Island (famous for being one of the wind power projects with the highest number of bird kills in North America) and phases 1 and 2 of the Melancthon project in Shelburne (199 MW). The company claims production of 2,300 megawatts of power, of which 54% is from wind, in 18 facilities around the world. Wolfe Island and Melancthon 2 receive payments not only from their power purchase agreements with Ontario but also federal ECOenergy payments. Revenues for 2017 were $2.3B with operating income of $138M. The President and CEO is Dawn Farrell whose compensation came under fire in 2017 at the shareholders’ meeting; they objected to the 60% rise in compensation. Ms Farrell was paid $7.4M, which included a base salary of $960,000 plus stock options and bonuses.

Ownership at a glance

Developer ownership Megawatts in operation/planned Ontario
Non-Canadian 4,023.35
Canadian 1,048

Almost 80 percent of Ontario’s wind power projects are owned by non-Canadian companies

 

 

 

Suppliers:

Senvion Canada: Senvion Canada is a division of Germany-based Senvion S.A., one of the world’s leading turbine manufacturers. The company began operating in Canada in 2009 and now has more than 660 turbines installed. Senvion Canada is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, with offices in Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia. Senvion’s 2017 revenue was €1.8M ($2.8 CAD), sales or “order book” were €5B ($8B CAD). Senvion is owned by Centerbridge Partners, a New York-based private equity firm. CEO is Jurgen Geissinger; no compensation data is available.

GE Renewable Power is a division of GE or General Electric, which is aiming to profit from the renewables sector by manufacturing equipment including turbines. GE headquarters are is Boston, Massachusetts. In Canada, GE manufactures wind turbine blades at a plant in Gaspé. Profits have been down lately for the company, with a 1-year return on investment of -54%. In 2017, operating cash flow was $10B USD. CEO of GE Renewables is Jérôme Pécresse; no compensation data is available.

Vestas Wind Systems: Based in Aarhus, Denmark, publicly owned Vestas is perhaps the best known among wind turbine suppliers. According to one 2015 industry article, Vestas is the number one company in the world for turbine installations. Annual revenues for 2017 were €9.9B or $15.5B CAD, and operating profit was €1.6B or $2.5B CAD. CEO is Anders Runevad, who came on board in 2013 to help shift the company back to good fortune. Mr. Runevad maintains a low public profile and there is no compensation data available.

Siemens Canada is a division of worldwide engineering firm, Siemens AG, headquartered in Munich, Germany. Siemens Canada claims expertise in the fields of electrification, automation and digitalization and is involved in sustainable energy, “intelligent infrastructure,” healthcare and manufacturing. One of the world’s largest producers of energy-efficient, resource-saving technologies, Siemens is a foremost supplier of power generation and power transmission solutions. The company is also a leading provider of medical imaging equipment and laboratory diagnostics as well as clinical IT. With Headquarters in Canada in Oakville, Siemens Canada has approximately 5,000 employees, 44 offices and 15 production facilities from coast-to-coast. Siemens AG assets as of 2017 were €134B or $214.6B CAD; revenue was €83B ($9.61B CAD); operating cash flow was €6B ($132B CAD). Siemens Canada President and CEO is Faisil Kazi; no compensation data is available.

 

Aecon: This Canadian construction company is engaged in infrastructure and energy projects throughout Canada. The company is currently in negotiations to be sold to Chinese company CCCC International, but the sale is under review by the federal government on the grounds of national security interests. Aecon has headquarters for various regions but the Canada East office is in Toronto. Financial results were presented under Infrastructure and Energy—we’re not sure where the company’s work for wind power developers fits. Results for 2017 are: Infrastructure revenues $685M CAD and operating profit was $32.5 M CAD; Energy revenues were $395.7 M, and operating profits were $23.1M. Total assets for Aecon were $2.5B. President and CEO is John M. Beck whose 2016 compensation was $3.6M.

***

Thanks to energy economist Robert Lyman and energy commentator Parker Gallant for their input. Sources: company financial reports, Bloomberg, Reuters, Canadian Business

contact@windconcernsontario.ca

 

Wind power developer documents found lacking: engineers’ report

09 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Power developer project documents are missing key details, engineering firm tells Municipality of North Stormont

Concerned Citizens of North Stormont leader Margaret Benke, in Finch, Ontario: MOECC has poor track record in meeting its responsibilities

August 9, 2017

Last week, Portugal-based EDP Renewables filed documents with the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) as part of the Renewable Energy Approval (REA) process, to get final approval for its “Nation Rise” wind power project in North Stormont, just south of Ottawa.

Using every tool they have to act responsibly on behalf of citizens, North Stormont had engaged Ottawa engineering firm Morrison Hershfield to conduct a review of the documents presented earlier.

The firm found that key information was missing from the project documents in critical areas such as the impact of the project on groundwater, and on bird and bat populations, to name two. An excerpt from the Morrison Hershfield report, tabled at a late June Council meeting, follows.

  • No review has been completed for potential impacts of the project on potable water sources. While potential impacts to groundwater resources have been reviewed from a biophysical perspective, no review has been completed to assess the potential impacts to groundwater resources from a potable water quantity and quality perspective.

• No review has been completed for potential impacts of the project on prime agricultural lands (Class 1-3 agricultural soils)

• Confirmation letter from the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport regarding completeness of archaeological and cultural heritage assessments has not been received for the project as described in clauses 22 (a) and 23 (3) (a) of Ontario Regulation 359/09;

• Confirmation letter from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry regarding completeness of natural heritage assessment and birds and bats EEMP has not been received for the project as described in clauses 28 (3) (b) and (c) of Ontario Regulation 359/09;

• Significant details are missing on the project description (e.g. location and type of permanent meteorological towers & location of the 2-3 proposed staging areas of 2-7 hectares each); and

• No detailed review has been completed to assess potential effects of the project construction on municipal infrastructure.

The consulting firm recommended to Council that North Stormont ask for these reports to be provided, including an assessment of impact on groundwater and municipal infrastructure such as roads.

Read the engineering firm report here.

There is no information on whether EDP complied with the request from North Stormont before filing project documents to be screened for “completeness” by the MOECC.

Citizens in the area are very concerned about the power project. Margaret Benke, a leader with Concerned Citizens of North Stormont, told Ottawa Wind Concerns “You can imagine that with 825 homes within 2km of one and up to 10 proposed turbines, and both Crysler and Finch villages within 3km of multiple turbines, we are bracing for the worst.

The group is especially concerned following release of a report by Wind Concerns Ontario in June, showing that the MOECC has failed to respond to thousands of reports of excessive noise from wind turbines.

“We have many apprehensive citizens,” Benke said. “Unless the MOECC changes its approach, we expect that we could be treated with the same lack of respect and consideration as the 3,200 other residents of Ontario who were largely ignored.  We will continue our fight to protect our rural citizens, who deserve equal respect as citizens.”

EDP also operates the South Branch wind power project in Brinston; it took over a year to file its required acoustic audit to demonstrate compliance with provincial noise regulations for wind turbines, but there is no report posted on the company’s website.

The Nation Rise project will be 100-megawatt capacity using 30-35 industrial-scale wind turbines; Ontario currently has a surplus of electrical power and is regularly selling off extra at below-market prices, and paying wind power generators not to produce in times of low demand and high supply.

A report published by the Council for Safe a& Reliable Energy noted that 70 percent of Ontario’s wind power is wasted. (Ontario’s High-Cost Millstone, June, 2017)

Wind turbines not clean, not green

22 Monday May 2017

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“The phrase ‘clean energy’ is a sick joke,” says Matt Ridley of the U.K. Here’s why.

The Global Wind Energy Council recently released its latest report, excitedly boasting that ‘the proliferation of wind energy into the global power market continues at a furious pace, after it was revealed that more than 54 gigawatts of clean renewable wind power was installed across the global market last year’.

You may have got the impression from announcements like that, and from the obligatory pictures of wind turbines in any BBC story or airport advert about energy, that wind power is making a big contribution to world energy today. You would be wrong. Its contribution is still, after decades — nay centuries — of development, trivial to the point of irrelevance.

Here’s a quiz; no conferring. To the nearest whole number, what percentage of the world’s energy consumption was supplied by wind power in 2014, the last year for which there are reliable figures? Was it 20 per cent, 10 per cent or 5 per cent? None of the above: it was 0 per cent. That is to say, to the nearest whole number, there is still no wind power on Earth.

Even put together, wind and photovoltaic solar are supplying less than 1 per cent of global energy demand. From the International Energy Agency’s 2016 Key Renewables Trends, we can see that wind provided 0.46 per cent of global energy consumption in 2014, and solar and tide combined provided 0.35 per cent. Remember this is total energy, not just electricity, which is less than a fifth of all final energy, the rest being the solid, gaseous, and liquid fuels that do the heavy lifting for heat, transport and industry.

Such numbers are not hard to find, but they don’t figure prominently in reports on energy derived from the unreliables lobby (solar and wind). Their trick is to hide behind the statement that close to 14 per cent of the world’s energy is renewable, with the implication that this is wind and solar. In fact the vast majority — three quarters — is biomass (mainly wood), and a very large part of that is ‘traditional biomass’; sticks and logs and dung burned by the poor in their homes to cook with. Those people need that energy, but they pay a big price in health problems caused by smoke inhalation.

Even in rich countries playing with subsidised wind and solar, a huge slug of their renewable energy comes from wood and hydro, the reliable renewables. Meanwhile, world energy demand has been growing at about 2 per cent a year for nearly 40 years. Between 2013 and 2014, again using International Energy Agency data, it grew by just under 2,000 terawatt-hours.

If wind turbines were to supply all of that growth but no more, how many would need to be built each year? The answer is nearly 350,000, since a two-megawatt turbine can produce about 0.005 terawatt-hours per annum. That’s one-and-a-half times as many as have been built in the world since governments started pouring consumer funds into this so-called industry in the early 2000s.

At a density of, very roughly, 50 acres per megawatt, typical for wind farms, that many turbines would require a land area greater than the British Isles, including Ireland. Every year. If we kept this up for 50 years, we would have covered every square mile of a land area the size of Russia with wind farms. Remember, this would be just to fulfil the new demand for energy, not to displace the vast existing supply of energy from fossil fuels, which currently supply 80 per cent of global energy needs.

Do not take refuge in the idea that wind turbines could become more efficient. There is a limit to how much energy you can extract from a moving fluid, the Betz limit, and wind turbines are already close to it. Their effectiveness (the load factor, to use the engineering term) is determined by the wind that is available, and that varies at its own sweet will from second to second, day to day, year to year.

As machines, wind turbines are pretty good already; the problem is the wind resource itself, and we cannot change that. It’s a fluctuating stream of low–density energy. Mankind stopped using it for mission-critical transport and mechanical power long ago, for sound reasons. It’s just not very good.

As for resource consumption and environmental impacts, the direct effects of wind turbines — killing birds and bats, sinking concrete foundations deep into wild lands — is bad enough. But out of sight and out of mind is the dirty pollution generated in Inner Mongolia by the mining of rare-earth metals for the magnets in the turbines. This generates toxic and radioactive waste on an epic scale, which is why the phrase ‘clean energy’ is such a sick joke and ministers should be ashamed every time it passes their lips.

It gets worse. Wind turbines, apart from the fibreglass blades, are made mostly of steel, with concrete bases. They need about 200 times as much material per unit of capacity as a modern combined cycle gas turbine. Steel is made with coal, not just to provide the heat for smelting ore, but to supply the carbon in the alloy. Cement is also often made using coal. The machinery of ‘clean’ renewables is the output of the fossil fuel economy, and largely the coal economy.

A two-megawatt wind turbine weighs about 250 tonnes, including the tower, nacelle, rotor and blades. Globally, it takes about half a tonne of coal to make a tonne of steel. Add another 25 tonnes of coal for making the cement and you’re talking 150 tonnes of coal per turbine. Now if we are to build 350,000 wind turbines a year (or a smaller number of bigger ones), just to keep up with increasing energy demand, that will require 50 million tonnes of coal a year. That’s about half the EU’s hard coal–mining output.

Forgive me if you have heard this before, but I have a commercial interest in coal. Now it appears that the black stuff also gives me a commercial interest in ‘clean’, green wind power.

The point of running through these numbers is to demonstrate that it is utterly futile, on a priori grounds, even to think that wind power can make any significant contribution to world energy supply, let alone to emissions reductions, without ruining the planet. As the late David MacKay pointed out years back, the arithmetic is against such unreliable renewables.

The truth is, if you want to power civilisation with fewer greenhouse gas emissions, then you should focus on shifting power generation, heat and transport to natural gas, the economically recoverable reserves of which — thanks to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing — are much more abundant than we dreamed they ever could be. It is also the lowest-emitting of the fossil fuels, so the emissions intensity of our wealth creation can actually fall while our wealth continues to increase. Good.

And let’s put some of that burgeoning wealth in nuclear, fission and fusion, so that it can take over from gas in the second half of this century. That is an engineerable, clean future. Everything else is a political displacement activity, one that is actually counterproductive as a climate policy and, worst of all, shamefully robs the poor to make the rich even richer.

Spectator.co.uk/podcast
Matt Ridley discusses wind power

Read the whole article here

Get costs down, electricity stakeholders tell Wynne government

12 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by in Renewable energy, Wind power

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Former banker and now energy analyst Parker Gallant has prepared a summary of submissions to the Ontario Ministry of Energy, which last fall asked for input to a new Long-Term Energy Plan (LTEP).

Aside from the vested interests in wind power, the stakeholder groups like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, and the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers all recommended the government act now to get costs down. And that includes, getting rid of wind power.

From the article, an excerpt on two of the submissions made to the government.

Strategic Policy Economics – Marc Brouillette’s excellent submission on behalf of Bruce Nuclear also carries some sane observations such as “Wind generation has not matched demand since its introduction in Ontario” and, “Over 70% of wind generation does not benefit Ontario’s supply capability.” And this one, which is becoming more evident as ratepayers are forced to pay for curtailed generation: “Wind generation will not match demand in the OPO Outlook future projections as 50% of the forecasted production is expected to be surplus.”

The recommendation that will cause the most handwringing will be: “The LTEP should integrate the objectives of Ontario’s environmental, energy, industrial, and economic policies for the long-term future benefit of Ontarians.”

Wind Concerns Ontario – The coalition of community groups and individuals throughout Ontario had this to say by way of advice to the Ministry: “The government policy to promote “renewables” such as wind and solar have been a critical factor in the grave economic situation today. Wind power for example, now represents 22% of electricity cost, while providing only 5.9% of the power. Worse, that power is produced out-of-phase with demand, as has been detailed by two Auditors General; so much of it is wasted. This is unsustainable.

“Clearly,” WCO continued, “the direction for the Ministry of Energy is to formulate a new Long-Term Energy Plan that will take immediate action on reducing electricity costs. Those actions must include a review of all contractual obligations for power generation from wind, and action to mitigate further costs to the system, and the over-burdened people of Ontario.”

WCO called for cancellation of all the wind power contracts given in 2016, the FIT 5.0 program, and further, cancellation of all contracts for projects not yet built or which are not going to make a critical commercial operation date. In fact, all wind power contracts should be reviewed and paid out, as Ontario can save money by eliminating the need to dispose of the surplus electricity.

Read the full article here.

Ontario “worst electricity market in the world”

19 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by in Renewable energy, Wind power

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While Ottawa’s Bob Chiarelli, Ontario Minister of Energy, insists that paying high and selling low is a good economic strategy (meanwhile inflicting dramatic increases in bills to consumers), economic analysts don’t seem to agree. Here from Forbes. com is a view of Ontario’s handling of the electricity sector.

Ontario’s high electricity prices are bad for business

Jude Clemente, Forbes/Energy, March 30, 2016

“Ontario is probably the worst electricity market in the world,” Pierre-Olivier Pineau, University of Montreal

Ontario’s auditor general just reported that the province paid an extra $37 billion for electricity from 2006-2014, likely the most ludicrous energy story that I’ve ever read (here). Ontario has gone from having some of the most affordable electricity in North America to having some of the most expensive. From 2013-2015 alone, industrial electricity rates increased 16%.

  • The Green Energy Act (GEA) “is costing Ontario over $5 billion annually but yields negligible environmental benefits,“and the plan has been 10 times more costly per year than an alternative coal retrofit plan examined in 2005.
  • The GEA prioritizes wind, even though wind power generation is almost perfectly out-of-sync with consumption in Ontario, resulting in the dumping of surplus wind energy into outside markets. “Electricity exports cost Ontario taxpayers $200 million in June.”
  • In 2003, the provincial government decided to phase-out coal-fired generation by 2007 (later extended to 2014), perhaps the most cost effective source of power.
  • This necessitated investment in new sources of electricity. For example, more expensive wind has provided less than 4% of Ontario’s power but accounts for 20% of the cost of electricity. In January, Ontario Power Generation unveiled plans for a $13 billion refurbishment of four nuclear reactors, which could crush ratepayers to recover the total costs.

Read the full article at Forbes.com here.

Missing the point of Earth Hour in Ontario

18 Friday Mar 2016

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Earth Hour: cruel irony in Ontario where government policy is actually causing poverty and hardship
Earth Hour: cruel irony in Ontario where government policy is actually causing poverty and hardship

Earth Hour 2016 is tomorrow, March 19, 2016 from 8.30 PM to 9.30 PM when all the world is encouraged to turn off their lights for an hour of symbolic action. Specifically the goal is: “Earth Hour aims to encourage an interconnected global community to share the opportunities and challenges of creating a sustainable world.”

This is an admirable objective – everyone wants to do their best for the environment – but the truth is, much depends on how sustainability is positioned by politicians.

In Ontario the OEB (Ontario Energy Board) noted in a 45 page report dated December 22, 2014:  “Using LIM1. as a measuring tool, and relying on Statistics Canada household data, Ontario has 713,300 low-income households. The OESP is estimated to reach 571,000. This estimate recognizes that not all low-income households in the province pay their electricity bills directly (i.e., utilities included in rent).” That report led to the introduction of the OESP or Ontario Electricity Support Program start-up on January 1, 2016, expected to cost between $175 and $225 million, paid for by those 3.9 million households who don’t qualify for the OESP.

So did the Ontario government simply not understand creation of the Green Energy & Green Economy Act (GEA) would result in so many low-income households? It is now apparent the advent of the GEA played a major role, by raising the cost of the production of electricity by well over 70% since its enactment. The push for renewables in the form of industrial wind turbines, solar panels, etc., which require back-up from gas plants due to the intermittent and unreliable nature of renewables, added billions in costs. The transmission builds to bring wind and solar power to the grid added billions more and, coupled with the other billions spent trying to convince us to conserve, added even more costs.

The addition of almost 10,000 MW (so far) of renewable generation at prices over market impacted disposable income for all Ontarians living at, or close to, minimum wage and for many others living on fixed incomes. The other result of adding renewable power is that Ontario is now in the position of having surplus power generated at the wrong time of the year and night when demand is low. This surplus must be either sold off (exported), curtailed (wind and solar) or steamed-off (nuclear). Additionally, ratepayers and taxpayers are charged for the ideasNB: related to conservation such as paying for grants for electric vehicles and their charging stations.

March 13, 2016 is an example: it was a day when the sun shone and the wind was blowing. Ontario demand was low reaching only 320,000 megawatt hours (MWh) while generation, coupled with curtailed wind, idling gas plants, spilled hydro and even curtailed solar along with all of the distribution connected (Dx) power (principally wind and solar) was about 463,000 Mwh2.. Ontario’s ratepayers needed only 68% of that 463,000 MWh, so the other 32% was either exported or curtailed (to avoid blackouts) while being billed to Ontario ratepayers. Production costs (without the other items tossed into the “Global Adjustment pot) were over $100/per MWh, meaning the 143,000 MWh surplus picked ratepayers’ pockets for more than $14 million or $2.85 per ratepayer for just one day. (Bob Chiarelli, our Minister of Energy, would probably say that was just the cost of a “Timmies”!)

In 2015, Glen Murray, Ontario’s Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, said Earth Hour “Every passing year it becomes more infectious. It’s actually really doing what it intended to do, which is to get into the popular culture.”

Minister Murray should note we have turned off the lights, not because we want to but because we can’t afford to “keep them on.”

It appears to this Ontario ratepayer that what is really “infectious” is the Ontario government’s ability to create “energy poverty” for hundreds of thousands of Ontario’s households and, instead of promoting sustainability, it has instead driven many to a situation where they now have to decide whether to “heat or eat”.

Hardly the lofty goal that Earth Hour aspires to, and clearly not what well-meaning citizens wanted to happen.

©Parker Gallant,

March 17, 2016

NB: Note to Minister’s Chiarelli and Duguid: If you can afford a $100,000 Tesla automobile you can afford a charging station!

  1. LIM stands for “Low-Income Measure” per Statistics Canada.
  2. Big hat tip to Scott Luft for his great “daily reports” which go well beyond what IESO (Independent Electricity System Operator) provide.

Re-posted from Wind Concerns Ontario

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

Exxon forecasts rise in natural gas for energy supply to 2040

08 Tuesday Mar 2016

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EXXON’S VIEW OF GLOBAL ENERGY SUPPLY AND DEMAND TO 2040

By Robert Lyman

EXXON Corporation, one of the world’s largest energy enterprises, recently published its updated projection of energy supply and demand to 2040. The International Energy Agency, the United States Energy Information Administration, and British Petroleum have recently issued similar projections.

Projections of these kinds are interesting for several reasons, among which is the fact that they offer informed judgments about the trends in the world economy and energy sector that one may compare to the political aspirations of governments that the world sharply reduce fossil fuel consumption as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. At the recent Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention in 2015 in Paris, several governments committed in principle to the goal of eliminating the use of fossil fuels by 2100 and aiming to do this in the developed (OECD) countries by 2050. In short, several governments have claimed that they will eliminate all use of oil, natural gas, and coal by 2050. Environmentalists seek to do while also prohibiting any growth in the use of nuclear energy, the most reliable source of non-carbon base load electricity generation.

A question, therefore, is how do EXXON’s projections square with the goals articulated at the COP 21 meeting?

Generally, EXXON has accepted that the political push to reduce GHG emissions will have significant impacts in the OECD countries over the period to 2040, especially in terms of altering the sources of electricity generation and requiring fuel economy improvements in light duty vehicles and other energy-using equipment.

The following are the main observations that come from the EXXON report as to the changes that will occur from 2014 to 2040:

  • World population will grow 25% from 7.2 to 9 billion people.
  • Global income will more than double, with developing countries leading the growth.
  • Global energy demand consequently will grow by 25%. China and India together will account for almost half this increase.
  • The world middle class will grow from 2 billion to nearly 5 billion; the new members will want to have the cars, quality residences and appliances enjoyed by the middle class today.
  • By 2040, oil, natural gas and coal will not fade away as hoped by governments. In fact, they will continue to meet about 80 % of global energy demand. Natural gas demand will grow more that any other source.
  • Substantial gains in energy efficiency will see the carbon dioxide intensity of the global economy cut in half by 2040.
  • Global demand for transportation will increase by about 30%. Today there are about 1 billion light-duty vehicles (cars and SUVs) in the world. This number will rise by close to 800 million vehicles by 2040, with about 90% of this growth outside of the OECD.
  • Hybrid vehicles will increase from 2% of new car sales today to 40% by 2040, but all-electric plug-ins are likely to account for less than 10% of new car sales by 2040.
  • Demand for heavy-duty vehicles (i.e., trucks and buses) will increase by 45% by 2040, with about 85% of the growth coming from non-OECD countries.
  • Energy demand from ships, planes and trains will grow by 65%.
  • Over 90% of transportation demand will still be met by oil in 2040.
  • Global demand for electricity is expected to rise by 65% by 2040; 85% of electricity demand growth will comes from developing countries.
  • By 2040, the share of electricity generated by natural gas will rise to 30% and be about even with coal. (In other words, despite claims that coal will be eliminated, it will still be a major source of electricity supply globally.) The amount of electricity generated by coal in India will rise 150% from 2014 to 2040.
  • The amount of electricity from nuclear power will double from 2014 to 2040, with much of this growth coming in China.
  • Wind and solar energy will account for about 10% of electricity generation in 2040, up from 4% in 2014. (This projection is entirely at odds with the predictions of environmental groups that wind and solar energy will replace all other energy sources by 2030.)
  • Carbon dioxide emissions will rise from about 30 billion tonnes per year in 2014 to a peak of about 37 billion tonnes by 2030, before slightly declining thereafter. By 2040, global emissions still will be about 35 billion tonnes, even though emissions in the OECD will drop by 20%.

Robert Lyman is an Ottawa-area economist who specializes in analyzing energy issues.