A contest for Ontario's Smart Grid Makes the Province look stupid

October 1st;

In partnership with MaRS Discovery District, the Energy Apps for Ontario Challenge is offering $50,000 to support the best new apps that use electricity data collected by smart meters. link

Harmless sounding, but if you are an Ontarian capable of being embarrassed, here's a short review of the history that should embarrass you.

government graphic: spending on "smart" to help you decide on solar panels

2004

Premier Dalton McGuinty makes smart metering a priority (2004):

Right now, most customers don't get a break on their bill if they use energy during off-peak hours when demand is lower. In particular, those off-peak hours range from about 10 o'clock in the evening until 7 o'clock in the morning. The reason they're not getting a break is because old-fashioned energy meters only record how much energy is being used and not when it is being used. Smart meters, together with more flexible pricing, would allow Ontarians to save money if they run appliances in off-peak hours. That's why we are directing the Ontario Energy Board to develop a plan to install smart electricity meters in 800,000 Ontario homes by 2007 and in each and every Ontario home by 2010. 

Lot's of spending ensues.

Today most electricity consumers have a smart meter, and most are now on "time-of-use" pricing.
Prior to the last election, off-peak hours were moved back to 7 pm, so as to exclude the highest demand hours of the day.

2009

• Publication of Enabling Tomorrow's Electricity System: Report of the Ontario Smart Grid Forum

Among the recommendations from the report;

Consumers and their designated representatives should have access to timely information on their consumption and the price they are being charged from a smart meter with two-way communication capability or via the internet...

To ensure the widest range of technological choices, entities investing in Ontario’s electricity system and those developing home energy management systems should continue to work with standards organizations, such as IEC, IEEE, Zigbee and Home Plug, to develop and promote open communications standards.

• Google launches Powermeter
• Microsoft launche Hohm

Open standards and the world's most powerful developers.

A promising future for consumer control... but utilities were laying the groundwork to prevent that.

2011

I wrote, in January, SMARTINESS: SMART METERS AND SMART GRIDS WITHOUT SMARTS;

Smart technology refers to components that can communicate, the communication protocols and networks, the servers, the software, the security protocols, the network architecture controlling access.  Our governments seem to lack the technical expertise in information technology and the bureaucratic backbone to face down poor direction.  

The year saw the publication of Modernizing Ontario's Electricity System: Next Steps: Second Report of the Ontario Smart Grid Forum May 2011

Among the recommendations of that report:

The interactions between LDCs and third-party service providers in each area of the smart grid value chain, including support for ...

This was bad - the LDC (local distribution companies) needn't have been involved.  Throughout the world utilities had held the line on owning the data from the meters, and Ontario was no different.  In 2008 the "Meter Data Management and Repository (MDM/R)" became operational, and "only LDCs and their authorized agents have the ability to transmit or request information from the MDM/R."

This wasn't unique to Ontario, and predicaably, in hindsight:

• Google kills Powermeter in June (see "Utility Friend or Foe?") 
• Microsoft kills Hohm days later (see utility barrier)

The White House, in September, "challenged the smart grid ecosystem to deliver on the vision of Green Button and provide customers access to their energy usage information electronically. With this information at their fingertips, consumers would be enabled to make more informed decisions about their energy use and, when coupled with opportunities to take action, empowered to actively manage their energy use."

2012

January sees the launch of the U.S. President\s Green Button initiative
March sees the launch of U.S. Apps for Energy contest - building on the green button initiative

The traditional utility controls the data - in Ontario the MDM/R prevents real-time access by customers to the data of customers.

November sees Ontario's Minister of Energy announce a working group to copy the U.S. program, or as the news release put it, "explore an Ontario Green Button initiative that would use innovative smart grid technology."  
Parker Gallant wrote on the announcement; Green Buttons: Cutting Edge Technology or Greening MaRS Discovery District

December sees the publication of Access to Consumer Data: A Vignette, by the Ontario Smart Grid Forum

To date, the Smart Grid Forum has not adopted a single position regarding the Green Button Initiative, though it continues to monitor and, in the case of some of its members, participate in ongoing developments with great interest, including events which are about to unfold here in Ontario...

Shortly after the "vignette" I wrote Whose Meter Is It: Dopey Ontario and Smart Meters

2013

In March I used my hourly data (from Hydro One - downloadable into MS Excel) in writing Lower class treatment for the home unit

In August I attempted downloading my Green Button data - which I did eventually accomplish, but notified Hydro One of some concerns with the usability:

... I've gone from curious about the green button data to curious about why the site is so slow and unstable. From the frequent bot protection pop-ups, it appears offering no functionality is a security feature.
Is that the case?

Within a week Hydro One responded:, "In order to provide you with an accurate response, please provide your property address, meter number and/or Hydro One account number..."

I took that as a yes.

Once I had the green button data, I looked to apps to use it with; there's a long list of U.S. apps at openei.org, but the only one I found that would accept my data lead to a primitive display of Mike Tyson boxing for some reason (apparently I was fighting another household - and I did win, but that's all the information I got from the app).

Not that the time was wasted: I  now get coupons e-mail'd to the address from which I sent the inquiry to Hydro One.

September brought the latest publication from the Ontario Smart Grid Forum; Ontario Smart Grid Progress Assessment: A Vignette.
aside: I wonder how much money was spent on consultants in order to arrive at the decision to move from "Reports" to "Vignettes"?

The most remarkable section on the last vignette is "Appendix 2 ‘Smart Grid Success Metrics’ originally proposed by the Ontario Smart Grid Forum Corporate Partners Committee (as published in the Forum’s 2011 report)" - 4 pages stuggling to connect desired measurable success with proof of same, beginning with the "measure":

The percentage of premises capable of receiving information from their smart meter

It isn't clear they understand the answer is essentially 0 - and that the lack of real-time functionality is the reason applications can't be valuable.
A search for the term "value" in the vignette returned 9 instances, none of which are attached to any claim of having provided it.

While the report is nominally about smart grids, it is useful primarily in demonstrating Parkinson's law; Parkinson wrote on the growth of Britain's Colonial Office during the decline of the Empire, and the smart grid forum reports (vignettes?) on the growth of bureaucracy and utility expense during the decline of electricity consumption.

October

The announcement to replicate, in Ontario, the U.S. app contest from 18 months earlier.
The contest isn't expensive by government terms - just $50,000 (I invite all with the capability to copy the apps at openei.org - points may be deducted for originality).

It is expensive due to the partnerships required to acquire the brainpower to copy an ineffectual U.S. program; the announcement was made at Ryerson (been there - during one of its previous world leading innovation periods when it contained the Eaton's School of Retailing), jointly with MaRS (not the planet, devoid of intelligent life).

It can't help the image of Ontario's actual technology industries to have a government that has spent billions on "smart" things only to stupidly copy a U.S. contest in the hopes somebody might present something intelligent. 

Sun-burned: Winter Electricity Rate Hike likely a record

Today the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) announced regulated price plan rates for November 1 2014 - April 30, 2014: my initial review shows the rate hike is over 12%  from the same period a year earlier, which is a record hike for winter rates since the OEB started setting rates, and probably also exceeds historical price spikes in the early 1990's, and the 1970's.

The OEB posts a number of documents in announcing the rates; Navigant Consulting has been providing a canned report for years, so I was just briefly leafing through it and found a new table displayed this time around - I've marked it up as Ontarians, and many others, have exhibited a lot of difficulty spotting the obvious.

Solar is expected to be 11% of the total - and that's in the least productive months for solar output!

I have noted solar is likely now exceeded the cost of hydro (I regularly update supply cost estimates here), and Navigant is now showing it too.

On another poorly played note ....


The OEB's backgrounder accompanying the announcement contains the apparently requisite (if you wish to keep a healthy paycheque) nonsense on time-of-use rates/smart meters.

Time-of-use prices are designed to better reflect the cost of power at different times of the day.
They encourage consumers to use electricity during lower-cost time periods that in turn can ease pressure on the provincial power system. It can also benefit the environment. 

Funny that: if solar is to contribute 11% of the cost, during daylight hours, and look to continue being the key driver of rate increases, how is it possible that the highest price hikes are again in off-peak hours?

The first winter's time-of use rates, for off-peak: mid-peak, and on-peak, were set at roughly a 1:2:3 ration.  That ratio has steadily declined over the years and is now 1: 1.5: 1.8

Is that to discourage shifting use?

Empathize, if you can, with those few who have spent money on consumption shifting technologies only to have seen the saving opportunities in doing so disappear as they are bombarded with coupons for lightbulbs, new furnaces and really sweat air conditioning promotions.

Perhaps picture the same disappearing return of investment happening to solar producers with lucrative feed-in tariff contracts.

It is probably long past-time for the OEB to prohibit the recovery of expenditures on conservation at the Ontario Power Authority, zap the funding of a smart data repository inexplicably placed with a market operator, and to review local distribution companies rate requests to eliminate ROE costs based on marking equity up $700 for each stupidly installed ~$150 smart meter.

There are a lot of entities involved with Ontario's electricity sector feasting on ratepayers and not even feigning an attempt at providing value in return.

This rate increase is going to be very mild compared to what will come next May.

The regulator should be the entity to introduce responsibility back into Ontario's electricity sector - or it might be the first target of the entity that eventually does.

Backgrounder for Auditor General's report on Oakville Gas plant

Today the new Auditor General of Ontario will deliver, to the legislature, a report on the cost of cancelling/moving the Oakville Generating Station (I'll refer to it as the OGS, although now it is to be located hundreds of kilometers from Oakville).
The report will tell us more about the capabilities of the new Auditor, and the mainstream media, than it will about the gas plant.

It's been almost exactly a year since analyst Bruce Sharp provided the public with reasonable estimates of the full cost of the bumbling on the OGS (directly here, and second hand in the Star).  Former head of the Ontario Power Authority Jan Carr took a different route to arrive at essentially the same figure.
There have been higher estimates: Terence Corcoran found a way to put the ''one billion dollars' tag on the debacle, and documents released due to the legislature, and posted at Tom Adams' site, indicate the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) was authorized to go as high as $1.2 billion to make the problem go away.


There are estimates that appear lower, and they are they ones the mainstream media bundles into its reporting.  $241 million and $310 million are figures that came out from a Nera Consulting study prepared for the OPA, and a simplified presentation from the OPA (both here).  The figures are magically still close to Bruce Sharp's original estimates, with the exception that the OPA deducts $539 million as savings from starting the payments later ("Savings from Time Deferral of Payments from 2014 to 2019").

An interesting thing about Toronto's mainstream media is its lack of interest in the validity of that claim.

One would think the question might be asked about the cost of deferring 900MW of firm, dispatchable (a.k.a. valuable) supple instead of:

• deferring 900MW of non-dispatchable industrial wind supply contracted at up to $145/MWh
• deferring 900MW of non-dispatchable solar supply contracted at rates up to $820/MWh

It seems to me that unless the media cares to note a cost of billions for delaying the Oakville Generating Station instead of delaying far more expensive supply, they shouldn't note figures which deduct for delaying the most valuable new supply option.


NOTES:

I wrote on this at the time the Nera/OPA estimates were presented; In Ontario, A preference for fraud

The Globe and Mail has an article on the soon to be released report; McGuinty could have cancelled gas plant with no compensation costs, audit to show.
The articles main point seems to be the project would likely have died on its own if the government had not killed it - my recollection is that is a point made by OPA staff in the documents found at Tom Adams' site

Addendum

A press release and the full report are now posted on the Auditor General's site

First impressions are that it is as expected since Bruce Sharp's estimates cited earlier in this post

And I missed Bruce Sharp's first online analysis, which was posted at Tom Adams Energy many days before the story hit the papers.

Wholesale rates up double digits again in September; Regulated prices likely to increase sharply for November

Enough data exists to estimate the Commodity Charge for electricity in Ontario's wholesale market will be up about 16% in September 2013 (from September 2012), which will bring the year-to-date increase to the same 16%.
2013's September will have a weighted average Hourly Ontario Energy Price of about ~$22.24/MWh (down 15% from 2012's), and the 2nd estimate for the global adjustment (GA) is $63.08 (up 32% from 2012's $47.62); combined the rate is $85.32, which is ~40 cents above the YTD average, both of which are 16% increases over 2012.


A month ago I was noting the quality of global adjustment estimates, including a first estimate for September of over $87/MWh (sensationally misreported in The Toronto Star days later).  The second estimate is 28% lower than the first - and the HOEP plus the 2nd estimate GA combined is also lower than the 1st estimate of the GA.

Emphasizing how scary the global adjustment charges look, the far better than initially feared total dollar estimate for the month is $666 million (actually $666.7, presumably rounded from $666,666,666.66)


I have updated the numbers on my data site estimating supply costs, as well as the monthly preliminary report.  In the past these shadow reports have attempted to match IESO reporting figures; this is increasingly unsatisfactory as the IESO's figures are not capturing some fundamental changes in Ontario's electricity sector.  For instance, the IESO's "Ontario Demand" is actually a total of supply on the IESO's grid, but currently all solar generation and likely a significant amount of wind generation is not captured in the reporting.  Wind and solar are among the so-called embedded generators which only appear to the IESO as a decrease in demand.

September 2013 shows a 2% drop in demand, but over half of this is, I estimate, due to increased embedded generation (the YTD comps are similar).  The reports I've provided up to now try to match up to reporting on supply and demand that actually reports neither.
We also get very little reporting on curtailment of generation.

Here's some claims I think are plausible:

• solar generation in September was at a level similar to coal-fired generation
• curtailed suplly (mostly steam bypass at Bruce Power's nuclear units) totalled almost as much as industrial wind turbines generated

The September figures are the first since March that align with my estimates, which could mean my estimates are lousy, but hopefully means there is an end to the mysterious charges the government has indicated ratepayers have been getting hit with for the Oakville Generating Station to be moved well away from Oakville.

Or ... the government may have directed a no-longer professional civil service to manipulate the wholesale rates to equate with the regulated price plan rates most residential consumers pay.

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Generation growth from nuclear and hydro (graph from my preliminary monthly reporting page, where it is interactive)

The average hourly natural gas-fired generation for September 2013 is the lowest I've encountered (since 2009).  I've written on how this drives up pricing, but here is an illustration of what it should be driving down:

graph from my preliminary monthly reporting page,

Based on graph from my Supply Cost Page: September falls into the trend - which is steeply higher pricing