Ontario Electricity Act Being Re-Written - and Other Thoughts for Santa

I stumbled across something yesterday that jolted me away from Christmas planning.  I've not posted much this month as I've been suffering from writer's block in attempting to write Santa my list.  I don't wish  for stuff anymore - I generally mix up the old gift holiday with my murky religious philosophy. It's a season where a muddled mind is unavoidable - so I usually hope for wisdom.
For others
What attribute should I wish for this year?

I was thinking about this when I saw the CBC's Mike Crawley tweet:

At 4pm on Fri before Xmas, McGuinty govt announces proposed changes to how it reports on hydro debt retirement http://bit.ly/uzexC3 #sl

I clicked through the links and went right to the revisions in the act related to the Debt Retirement Charge (DRC).  I wrote on the Debt Retirement charge during Ontario's election campaign, and everything I said was confirmed by the Auditor-General long after the campaign.  To be blunt, the debt retirement charge is to pay off whatever amount the Minister of Finance says it is ... but our Minister of Finance is too contemptuous of the populace to provide a figure.
Anyway ... nothing I noted in the act differed from the existing act in terms of the DRC.

Returning to the non-evil Mke Crawley's tweets, there was an update:

Clarification of my previous tweet: govt official tells me hydro debt retirement posting http://bit.ly/uzexC3 proposes no rule changes #sl

Hmmm ... so what is the update all about?
I did note the word "renewable" in the new act, a lot, and there is quite a bit about "smart meters" ... there's a lovely little bit on not discriminating on grid access followed, immediately, by a sentence noting "renewable' energy gets preferential grid access.  I think there is something in there on the government being able to raid OPG for funds at will too ... but I'm not a lawyer.

A third tweet followed from the non-despicalbe Mike Crawley:

Official says it kickstarts process for govt to report on status of hydro debt (as paid by debt retirement charge) as urged by auditor. #sl

Ahhhh - the act is to strengthen the larceny whereby public utilities have been stolen from Ontarians, with the wealth transferred to a "renewables' cabal (inclusive of the Mike Crawley I've emphasized the CBC's Mike Crawley is not). But it is to be pitched in the press as being related to accounting and the hydro debt.  That, and only that, explains the press release from Ontario's government being titled "Electricity Act, 1998: The Residual Stranded Debt and the Debt Retirement Charge"

My wandering mind wonders if there is anybody in the press who would attempt to find out what the changes are about when they are obviously not centred on what the government tells them to print.

Metro Martin, at the Toronto Star (Regg Cohn to dullards who don't see the resemblance to Bagdad Bob), provides an honest paragraph occassionally, and we were blessed with one of them this week in an article built around spending at the ORNGE air ambulance entity.

"Matthews says she was in the dark about ORNGE until, prodded by the Star’s coverage and the auditor general’s initial findings (his draft report has already been circulated), she demanded answers. In fact, opposition MPPs have been raising tough questions about the air ambulance arrangement for months without getting straight answers." 

Aside from the fact the auditor general had turned his sites on ORNGE, and the Star was most likely being provided facts to preemptively sacrifice heads to protect the inept McGuinty government, it's a refreshing piece of puffery to note The Star's chief propagandist is more important to the government than the people who voted for their representatives that sit in the legislature.
I wonder if the Globe's Mr. Chatelaine (A. Radwanski) will comment on the changes to the Electricity Act - I'm interested in his views on the choice of font.  While Metro Martin seems to choose to be uninterested in honest commentary at The Star, Radwanski is increasingly simply irrelevant.

When the Auditor-General's report was released, Radwanski tweeted his annoyance at it being treated as having any importance at all (a lock-up for this?) and then:
Quick take on the auditor's report: not too much new on green energy
Ignoring the criticism of the government's greeniness didn't seem to work, which Metro Martin picked up on right away.  His articles following the report's release went at the credibility of the critic in order to diminish the criticism, as he indignantly noted studies which cited job losses in other jurisdictions, mentioned briefly in the auditor's report, where discredited - and some studies have been rebutted, but our MM wouldn't know which ones, or whether the discrediting was valid.


The Globe's Mr. Chatelaine liked that angle.  He'd tweet: "Incidentally, I share others' surprise that the A-G cited controversial anti-green enegy studies - undermined his own work on the subject."


Santa - there's a wish for me and my peeps:  Can you get the Globe & Mail back to fulfilling the role Junius described:  "The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures."  In the coverage of Queen's Park, that would replace the role they have been playing lately - which is Newt to The Star's Herc.  It's been clear for awhile that the Globe's editorial endorsements will go to whoever they expect to win an election (and control a huge advertising budget - so I get that), but it would be nice to have some competence in between campaigns.


Well ... I've got tot get back to thinking about the children now.  Looking back at the year for niceness ... I don't think over half of eligible voters not turning up was very nice.  I don't think the collapse in Ontario's electricity market is nice - the ongoing huge contracts for unnecessary supply is not nice, the hidden contracts for new supply aren't nice, and the hidden agreements not to have new supply are less nice.  I don't think demand dropping off a cliff as the year ends is nice - and it's probably indicative of an industrial sector that is even less nice than pessimistic people realize.


Actually ... there seems to be a lot more naughtiness than niceness going on within the scope of this blog.


This year, my wish is for:
competence.
Not for me Santa - nice is not an adjective attached to me very often.
Not for me Santa, but for you.
Competence.
Do your job Santa.
Give us coal.

Kyoto a no-go: Canada exits

There's a lot of press, and commentary, on Canada's long-anticipated withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol.
I've visited the International Energy Agency (IEA) site to grab a spreadsheet of CO2 Emissions from fuel combustion (the bulk of emissions), and done a couple of brief calculations to develop illustrations of why Canada exited Kyoto, and when we fell behind on our targets.

The Kyoto Protocol was signed in December of 1997.  It set a base year of 1990 - some would say because of the skill of negotiators from countries that didn't have growing GHG emission between 1990 and December 1997.  Especially countries with recovering eastern bloc ecosystems.



A look at the changes between 1990 and 1998 (essentially the difference between Kyoto's negotiation and it's retroactive base year) shows the decline of the overall Annex 1 parties, but a growth of 18% in Canada.

Between 1998 and 2009 (the final year of data in the IEA spreadsheet), Canada didn't perform much differently, although having a significant oil industry, we still had some growth.

Of particular note here, the United States emissions drop in this period, by 5%, while Annex 1 Kyoto parties decrease by only 2%!  The growth in emissions clearly shifts to the non-OECD region.

Much of the press has centred on how backwards our Prime Minister Harper is, so I'll conclude with the same graph, but for the period of only 2005-2009 (Harper was first elected PM in 2006), when the Non-OECD region grows to emit far more than OECD countries.

Secret Deals between Public Power in Ontario and Quebec

There have long been suspicions that Ontario has been dumping hydroelectric production.    Earlier this year a report indicated Americans were generating power with the Ontario water allocation we were unable to use.  As the year progressed and water levels of the great lakes remained well above 2010 levels, it became apparent that Ontario’s hydro levels were producing at new lows as the year progressed.  I reviewed generation figures by site for September, and noted a big drop in the output from the unregulated segment of the Ontario Power Generation (OPG)  Ottawa/St. Lawrence Plant Group .  I made inquiries as to whether the water sharing agreements from the Niagara River were mirrored for rivers shared with Quebec at the time, which went unanswered.  Now I believe I’ve stumbled upon the proof that we have agreements with Quebec resulting in exports, and generation, that are not being reported.

Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) is, in my opinion, the exemplary government organization in making data available.  As each day progresses, reports are available for hourly generation, by generator (only if they are a certain scale), and for each intertie connecting markets.  I've written on daily records based on these two files, because Ontario Demand should be all generation, plus imports, less exports.
But it isn't.

There are reasons these files don't yield 100% accuracy compared to the reporting the IESO puts out on a weekly basis, including not all generation being included - but there is a patterned variance most weeks.
For instance, the Intertie Schedule and Flow Report for October 7th, 2011 shows, for the first 4 hours, exports of 1969, 2431, 2369 and 2425MW.  The cumulative Import/Export Schedule shows, for the same times, shows 1533, 1995, 1933, and 1989.  The difference, of over 430MW throughout many off-peak hours, is patterned.  This difference is the historical figures reported, as having been exported, less the actual movement of electrons out of the province.

That pattern is matched by the variations in hourly output of the R. H. Saunders Hydroelectric facility.  Between 6 and 8 am on October 7th, Saunders production is shown as doubling from 397MW to 794MW.

Graphing the output of Saunders, as shown in the hourly output and capability report, stacked with the variance between the hourly intertie figure, and the export figures later reported, it is apparent that Saunders is actually generating at a fairly constant rate, but much of the output is diverted to, presumably, Quebec.  This particular week saw over 40000MW of production that was not reported as production, and 40000MW of exports not be reported as exports.  That is the highest I have seen since tracking the hourly intertie data in April 2011, but it is not unique.

Weekly Totals since April 2011

As Quebec demand ramps up entering winter, it appears their ability to alleviate Ontario's growing excess supply burden also grows.  As these transactions aren't even acknowledged, the benefits/costs are not known.  What is known, and included in the IESO's 18-Month Outlook, is that other actions are being taken to curtail production during the many period where generation exceeds demand.

"So far in 2011, nuclear units have been maneuvered 113 times for a total of 364 hours. Compared to 2010 which had nuclear units maneuvered 14 times for a total duration of 64 hours, this represents a significant increase. This rise in manual action is a result of a lower minimum demands as well as a growing portfolio of inflexible generation."

The secrecy shrouding the existence of agreements between Ontario and Quebec is somewhat bizarre considering strong support, within Ontario, for clean energy imports from Quebec.  Aside from Quebec having the exceptionally valuable asset of reservoir storage/generation, Quebec is also a winter peaking jurisdiction where Ontario is a summer peaking jurisdiction.   It makes perfect sense that Ontario's excess, largely in the shoulder seasons (although even this morning nuclear production was curtailed for a few hours), would be sent to Quebec.  What doesn't make sense is for Ontario's publicly owned OPG have a secret relationship with Quebec's publicly owned Hydro-Quebec.

Friday, Ontario's Ministry of Energy released their latest press release to mislead citizens about exports benefiting Ontario - as they have taken to doing every month.  These monthly creative writing assignments cite an IESO page listing monthly imports and exports.  The IESO page is a true accounting of their import/export methodology, but exports are 0.55TWh higher, since April 1st, than they indicate - the difference seemingly comprised of switching the flow of some of Saunders' turbines to Quebec's grid.  Not that it makes any difference to the Ministry of Energy, who stupidly cite revenues without any reference to costs - but the people paying about $73.47/MWh in Ontario, for November (estimates of $28.76 HOEP plus $44.71 GA), might like to know the net export revenues their government notes ($16.1 million) are attached to an admitted 584,496MWh net export ($27.55/MWh), and a hidden 132,490MWh.   For November, net exports are under-reported by over 20%!

The hidden exports may not be such a bad deal.  Capacity payments are increasingly a feature of electricity systems, and this may give Ontario preferential access to over 2000 MW of clean supply during summer peak periods.  But Ontarians deserve to know the deals that exist, and they deserve to know how much generation is being spilled, curtailed, exported, and simply shuttered, while the building spree, of additional generation, continues unabated.