Coping with surplus wind power will cost Ontario electricity ratepayers up to $200 million a year if market rules don’t change, says the power system operator.
Moreover, it says, if it can’t control the flow of wind and solar power onto the Ontario grid, then “reliable and economic operation of the power system is, at best, highly compromised and likely not feasible.”
[…]
When there’s more power than the system can handle, the IESO sells it to neighbouring provinces and states — sometimes at a loss, and sometimes actually paying them to take it.
No worries, there’s plenty of wood in the Greenbelt.
h/t AK
Surplus wind power? Heh. The only surplus wind power is from the politicians.
We are here to help you, we’re from the government.
Once there is no wealth left to waste and steal, then the “Lefts” work is done.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought I’d read recently that the wind power genration accomplished a lot less than it was originally advertised to provide.
So, if that’s the case, how do we get to a surplus of electricity?
I’m confused!!
The surplus occurs because wind power availability is at the whim of the weather gods, and does not necessarily coincide with demand from power consumers.
Here is a suggestion: instead of trying, and mostly failing, to use wind power to displace coal in generating plants, why not use it to displace natural gas for home heating? Simply encourage homeowners to install an electric heating device, be it resistance heater or heat pump, to supplement their existing heating plant. Provide wind-generated electricity at say, 3 cents/kWh, through a separate meter with remote-control capability. This would allow the utility to add or shed load in real time to match the instantaneous output of the wind farms, which could then probably improve their capacity factor by virtue of having dedicated load. And because the heating would be supplemental, a prolonged calm spell would cause no hardship to consumers, other than increase their fuel bill a little.
Note also that home heating demand increases in windy conditions, because buildings lose heat more rapidly when it’s windy.
Of course investors would be unlikely to build new windfarms if all they could get was 3 cents per kWh, but such a scheme might make existing windfarms less of a white elephant than they are now.
Really? Who knew?
Who knew that the wind doesn’t blow on the hottest, most humid days of the summer in southern Ontario, when air conditioning ruins utility load factors and has traditionally made system planning and management difficult, even in the days before the current McGuinty-Smitherman-Wynne madness?
So, the solution is to close down a nuclear unit, while we’re closing the coal plants? Are you kidding me? Are you so feckless and pathetic in your obsequiousness in the presence of Laurentian/Liberal “know-it-all-ism” that you’re prepared to contemplate ANOTHER black-out?
I happened to be in St. Thomas the day of the last black-out, which came on a hot, humid summer afternoon in 2003, several months BEFORE McGuinty’s first election win: there was some power there — only because the 230kV line from Nanticoke FGS (coal; utterly reliable since its commissioning in 1973, despite a paucity of investment since, even in scrubbing technology; damaged during the event; due to be closed) runs 0.5km or less north of the City (which, for the greenies, is also a problem, I’m sure, and really requires that the line be moved or buried, due to some electro-magnetic radiation thingee that has been claimed, although never proven, to cause cancer).
Well, SDA readers knew, from reading commenter cgh’s outstanding technical synopsis (which included the very troubling, “hundreds of ‘nuclear maneuvers’ each month” remark) of several weeks back, as well as from reading the discussion we had a few days ago regarding the cost of the German government’s current (and doomed) green energy policy.
As Napoleon said (and I’m no fan of Napoleon), “From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step”.
And the only way you can be even remotely confident that the necessary changes will be made is to vote for Tim Hudak in the Ontario election which NEEDS to happen, and which will surely come, this spring. And I’d be pretty certain that Tim, once he becomes premier and sidelines the green energy contracts, will have to take a bunch of heat from the you-now-whos for adding ANOTHER few billion to Dalton McGuinty’s $274 billion debt, over and above the financial chaos with which he has been left.
And if anybody thinks that the Ontario NDP is the answer, let me relate a comment from none other than Marion Boyd (you know, Bob Rae’s Attorney General, who authored the Karla Homolka plea bargain), who, quite literally, said to my face, “I have a cottage near the Bruce Nuclear Plant, and I can see what they’re doing with the spent fuel rods.”
Here’s a winning campaign narrative for Tim: “You can’t build a first-rate health care system on a second-rate economy, and you can’t build a first-rate economy on a third-rate energy system. If you love your health care system, vote Conservative.”
They’re actually going pushing to be putting these bloody things about 10km from my house. Luckily(or unluckily) because I’m within the transmission grid area where it connects to the rest of the system they’re required to send me a letter saying if I have any complaints or comments, that I can goto these awesome public meetings. I do believe I’ll be going to this one, I missed the last one back in Novemeber(stinking storm). Being that they’re tying directly into my PUC, and our PUC is a not-for-profit, I say that they should be selling the power to our city at a discounted rate whenever there’s a glut.
You don’t need them because …
Prof Nasif Nahle has done studies on backradiation in his paper
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/New_Concise_Experiment_on_Backradiation.pdf
which I cited a year ago in my paper
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/psi_radiated_energy.pdf
Nasif is one of several physicists and professors of other disciplines on the team at Principia Scientific International all of whom recognise fallacies in the AGW conjecture.
You need to see the big picture to understand the relative insignificance of backradiation, as explained towards the end of my latest paper
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/PROM/PROM-COTTON_Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf
1. The thermal gradient (AKA “effective lapse rate”) is pre-determined by the force of gravity, the weighted mean specific heat of the gases in a planet’s atmosphere (at that altitude) and the degree of intra-molecular radiation which, in the case of Earth, is somewhat dependent on the percentage of water vapour which, as is well known, makes the gradient less steep.
2. The overall level of the plot is established by the autonomous propensity for there to be radiative equilibrium with incident Solar radiation. The area under the curved plot of outward radiative intensity thus has a propensity to remain constant if the gradient alters. So extra water vapour makes it less steep by lowering the surface end and raising the tropopause end.
3. The surface temperature can then be calculated by extrapolation of the thermal plot of temperature against altitude in the troposphere. The temperature can be derived using SBL from the values of radiative flux at each altitude from (2). The higher the tropopause, the greater the distance over which the temperature can rise, this explaining why Venus is much hotter than Earth.
4. The mechanism whereby the thermal plot is maintained involves the absorption of energy originally from the Sun (both in downwelling and upwelling radiation) which is then dispersed in all directions over the thermal plane, in order to maintain thermodynamic equilibrium, in accord with the requirements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
5. The thermal plot continues its upward climb more steeply in the crust (due to lower specific heat) but far less steeply in the hottest regions of the mantle because specific heat increases significantly with increasing temperatures.
6. Heat creep, as described in (4) allows thermal energy to enter deeply into the subsurface regions and, eventually, to support core temperatures and provide energy which can contribute to that in volcanoes and thermal springs and vents.
7.The surface warms temporarily during the day and then both radiative and non-radiative processes slow its rate of cooling, but there is a limit to such cooling due to the underlying very stable thermal plot of temperature against altitude or underground depth. This is why the base of the atmosphere does not continue cooling at a fast rate all through the night. The force of gravity redistributes absorbed energy in such a way as to provide a supporting temperature at the boundary of the surface and atmosphere, and even at the boundary of the mantle and core.
David, the economic situation has a few interesting angles that make the situation even worse than you describe. Bruce Power is a private entity. It needed to find something on the order of $12 billion to refurbish and restart the Bruce A reactors.
Just as a sidenote, that’s four reactors at about 850 MW net each to the grid, producing about 5 TWh annually each. Yup that’s a lot of electricity.
So the deal was that the company would only put this kind of capital at risk if Ontario purchased the power at a fixed rate and quantity. Typically it’s about 6-7 cents, which is very cheap when you think about it.
Now the nuclear operators aren’t stupid. They time their plant maintenance outages as best they can for times of the year when there’s lots of other power in the system, typically spring runoff when there’s lots of water for hydro dams. But wind is a whole other problem.
So here’s the deal. The nukes are running when the wind picks up. The Green Energy Act gives right of way to wind, so the Grid operator says to the nuke plant, time to cut back your output. So the reactor maneuvers to a lower power level. But you can only do that to about 60 per cent of full capacity. Below that the reactor has to shut down.
So now your reactor is off the system. Say the wind drops off (remember, energy from wind varies with the cube of the speed, so half wind velocity equals 1/8 the energy production). You can’t ask the nuke to pick up the slack because you just ordered it shut down and it takes a couple of days for the xenon to decay. So now you have to buy electricity from a quick-start gas plant. Its costs are on the order of 10-12 cents kWh.
But you’re still stuck with the cost you had to pay the nuclear plant. This wasn’t a forced outage, you ordered it off grid, but that doesn’t relieve you of having to compensate it for power it was producing under contract. You can thus easily end up having to pay 20 cents or more just to compensate for the variability of the wind turbine.
It’s even worse for OPG. As a crown agency, it gets NO compensation for lost production, NO compensation for additional maintenance burden for cycling the plant, and NO compensation from added wear and tear from varying the thermal load. And it doesn’t get a privately contracted rate of 5-7 cents. Its compensation for its production is much less.
The Green Energy Act is probably the most insane piece of economic legislation any Canadian government ever devised, except possibly Social Credit.
“No worries, there’s plenty of wood in the Greenbelt.”
Ha ha too sweet Kate! I don’t think the green belt was set up as a source of cheap fuel for the economic underclass, although it may come to that. IMHO it was created as a space where the tax depleted homeless middle class can set up their tents when the government seizes their homes for not being energy efficient.
What a complete cluster frig that province has become. GTA politics are absolutely toxic to resource deployment, social cohesion and provincial prosperity. Albertans beware, this is coming to your neck of the woods – there is no doubt you are in trouble hen your government turns in debt and deficit budget in the midst of a boom in the oil patch and $100+ barrel of oil – only klepocrats an do that and make no apology for it. You can see what they have done to the most prosperous industrial and energy efficient province in Canada – watch your backs.
Occam has been paying attention to AB politics. Redford is quite the piece of work. A tool of some sort.
Can’t blame her for windpower in Alberta, just the PC party.
When are governments/puc’s going to allow the individual to generate power on say a home roof and sell the excess to the grid?
“When are governments/puc’s going to allow the individual to generate power on say a home roof and sell the excess to the grid?”
When you see Redford’s government pass an Alberta version of Ontario’s Green Energy Act.
“When are governments/puc’s going to allow the individual to generate power on say a home roof and sell the excess to the grid?”
It’s called ‘net metering’ and you can already do that in Alberta. Some people generate enough excess electricity that their net electricity use over the year is zero.
Intermittent sources like solar balance nicely with gas turbine powered generators which can be easily and quickly brought on or off line.
No intelligent utility operator will try to modulate nuclear or coal to balance with wind or solar. Those sorts of what-ifs are just silly conjecture. Hydro can to some extent by letting more water impound, but gas turbines are the most flexible for load balancing.
There’s another element of this eco/enviro crap that never seems to get addressed: the ethics of “sticking it to” your neighbours and countrymen.
The people who have solar panels or windmills on their lands can rub their hands in glee when they get their cheques, but does it ever enter their heads that the dividend they get is causing hardship for seniors and the working poor? Do they ever think that manufacturers closing their doors and moving away might not be a good thing for the welfare of future Canadians?
Similarly, why don’t the people who apply for a Conservation Land Tax Incentive Program think or worry about the fact that the 100% tax exemption they will recieve is a deficiency in municipal coffers that will have to be picked up by neighbours?
I’m afraid that we have crossed a line somewhere in the not-too-distant past. Any kind of an analytical thought process should include an ethical component that weighs potential harms to other human beings – that obviously isn’t being done anymore.
Is it a sign that our population-at-large is becoming as greedy, heartless, selfish and uncaring as our politicians and bureaucrats? Or, if a government truly is ‘the people, could it be the other way around?
N60 —
I believe you (and cgh has forthrightly acknowledged and explained your points previously, in his synopsis of load duration in the Ontario system). But, putting aside the theoretical for the moment, I’m taking it as read that the ‘nuclear maneuvers’ are happening. Given his evident understanding and knowledge, which could only come from someone on the inside with long experience (20 to 30 years), originally from the nuclear side, of province-wide SCADA and dispatch economics, and appropriate technical/managerial training (P.Eng./M.B.A, at least), I don’t believe that cgh would make this up. Why would he? How’s that old Mark Twain saying go, again: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”
When you couple his remarks with your opening comment — “No intelligent utility operator will try to modulate nuclear or coal to balance with wind or solar”, you’d be getting to why I find the discussion so disturbing.
And when you overlay that information with the Rex Murphy column about the Mississauga gas generation plant — something about “burning taxpayer dollars before their very eyes” (in the range of $250MM to $1B) to move a gas plant in the middle of an election campaign so that you can manipulate a seat or two to get a majority government, I’m inclined to believe that we’re sitting on the top floor of a house of cards.
Quite apart from all of which, the IESO just admitted it: “reliable and economic operation of the power system is, at best, highly compromised and likely not feasible.”