8 ignominious Ontario electricity records

Some numbers I’ve compiled for the most recent periods of Ontario electricity consumption.

IESO weekly reports run from Wednesday to Tuesday – presumably because the market opened on Wednesday May 1st, 2002.

1 The week beginning on the 20th Wednesday of 2017, May 17-23, 2017, is the first one where the average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP), weighted to the system operator’s “Ontario Demand”, was negative.

On average, it cost money to give away electricity

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Industrial wind turbines limited worth in lowering emissions

On my twitter feed this morning:

“I’d like to hear from @ScottLuft on this.

“This” involved something about the value of wind, and what could be done to contain it.

 

I’ve written a lot on this in the past, and won’t do so again here except to explain the graph that accompanies this post – which explains what can be done to increase the value of the 20-year contracts Ontario’s thug Premier claims will have ongoing value.

It also explains why wind won’t, in the near future, be part of a near-zero emission electricity system anywhere not blessed with large hydro reservoirs.

The graphic shows:

Solar’s near nil capacity value in Canada’s north

Alberta is issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP) for 135,000 MWh of “solar electricity”.  I think that’s a strange thing to buy, and pulled some Ontario data to explain why.

The amount is about 2.4 times the production from the 40 megawatt (MW) “Northland Power Solar Facilities” over the past 12 months, according to the hourly generator output and capability reporting of Ontario’s system operator. Those facilities are located in the area of Cochrane, Ontario. While very north from the perspective of most Ontarians, Cochrane is only slightly north of the 49th parallel which forms Alberta’s southern border.

I’ve pulled data for the Northland facilities and the Grand Renewable Energy Park near Cayuga Ontario, roughly 650 km south of Cochrane. July is usually the peak month for total solar generation, and January can be the least productive. I’ve compared by hour using capacity factor due to the different sizes of the facilities, and will also note Ontario systems can be overbuilt – for instance, Grand Renewable has about 140 megawatts (MW) of DC panel capacity behind a 100 MW (AC) connection point. For my measurement the contracted (connection point) capacity is used in calculating the capacity factor.

Ontario’s system operator reports 200% rise in annual wind curtailment

The IESO has updated its 2016 year-end supply data page to include annual totals for “wind dispatch” and “Nuclear Manoeuvres and Shutdowns.”

Added to data from OPG on “hydroelectric generation due to [surplus baseload generation] conditions” this provides a more complete picture of annual curtailment.