Ontario Already Paying $60/Month More in Electric Prices for Closing Coal Plants and Would Pay $100 More to End Gas!
Yesterday, we covered how badly California energy policies are working for Californians. Today, we look at how Canadians are faring under the leadership of its own obtuse politicians. The Fraser Institute has just issued an insightful report titled “Decarbonizing Canada’s Electricity Generation, Lessons from Ontario and Prospects for Alberta.” It’s stuffed full of revealing facts regarding how the shifting from fossil fuels to green fantasies is raising Canadians’ electric bills to the max on the economic misery scale.
The summary says it all, though (emphasis added):
Canada’s Clean Electricity Regulations will require all provinces to fully “decarbonize” their electricity generation as part of the federal government’s broader “Net Zero 2050” greenhouse gas emissions mitigation plan.
Ontario’s experience with decarbonization in phasing out its coal-fired electricity power plants between 2008 and 2016 was illustrative. Ontario’s residential electricity costs increased by 71 percent over the period, far above the 34 percent average increase for the rest of Canada. In 2016, Toronto residents paid $60 more per month for electricity than the average Canadian. Similarly, during the same period, industrial electricity prices in Ontario increased significantly faster than in the rest of the country.
As Ontario continues to face pressure to decarbonize by phasing out natural gas, studies suggest this will lead to even higher electricity costs, with serious negative impacts on jobs, the economy, and grid reliability.
In 2015, the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario issued a report estimating the impact the coal phase-out had on electricity consumers in the province. It found that from 2004 to 2014, the amount residential and small-business electricity consumers paid for the electricity commodity portion of their bills increased by 80 percent, from 5.02 cents/kWh to 9.06 cents/kWh.
Alberta also faces the need to decarbonize its electrical generation under the federal government’s Clean Electricity Regulations. Several estimates suggest this will come at a steep price.
The Alberta Electric System Operator studied the likely costs of moving forward with the full decarbonization of Alberta’s electricity generation, finding that the expected cumulative cost increase from its 2021 Long-Term Outlook Reference Case to achieve the net-zero scenarios will be between $44.1 billion and $52.1 billion, representing a relative increase in costs of 30 percent to 36 percent.
And, here is more detail on that pressure to phase out natural gas and what it will yield if Ontario surrenders to it.:
As part of efforts to decarbonize Ontario’s electricity grid further, and pursuant to the Clean Electricity Regulations, there have been calls for the province to phase out natural gas power generation from its electricity mix. Pushed by groups like the Ontario Clean Air Alliance (OCAA) and other anti-fossil fuel groups, as well as many municipal governments across Ontario, the goal would be to eliminate natural gas power generation (and consequent greenhouse gas emissions) by 2030, in service of Canada’s commitment to decarbonize the economy and become “Net-Zero” emit- ters of greenhouse gases by 2050...
Several studies have examined the economic and grid stability implications of such a natural gas phase-out. In 2021, the Ontario Independent Electricity System Operator released a study, Decarbonization and Ontario’s Electricity Sector: Assessing the impacts of phasing out natural gas generation by 2030, which assessed the proposed phase-out in terms of potential costs, feasibility, and the potential to destabilize Ontario’s electricity system...
IESO found that natural gas generation “provides a level of flexibility to respond to changing system needs that would be impossible to replace in the span of just eight years.” They further observe that natural gas power generation in Ontario provides almost three-quarters of the system’s ability to respond quickly to changes in demand. And they note that the proposed alternate energy technologies are not ready for widespread implementation, finding that “Newer forms of supply, such as energy storage, are not ready to operate at the scale that would be needed to compensate; nor is there enough time or resources to build the necessary generation and transmission infrastructure to replace gas generation within an eight-year timeframe.”
…Analysis shows that a complete phase-out of gas generation by 2030 would lead to blackouts, as electricity would not always be available where and when needed. Gas generation offers a set of services, including quick response time and ensured availability, that keep the grid reliable and help balance the variability of wind and solar output…
There is no like-for-like replacement supply that can offer similar operating characteristics of gas generation. Because gas is generally always available and can respond quickly, at least 17,000 megawatts (MW) of non-emitting forms of capacity and 1,600 MW of energy conservation would be needed to take the place of 11,000 MW of natural gas generation capacity…
The IESO’s modelling of how to replace gas by 2030 would require more than $27 billion to install new sources of supply and upgrade transmission infrastructure. This translates into a 60 percent or $100 increase on the average monthly residential bill. High electricity costs may deter consumers from investing in carbon reduction, such as through electric vehicles or new equipment, and lead to an exodus of manufacturing firms from Ontario…
IESO also evaluated the impacts of phasing out natural gas energy generation in Ontario on greenhouse gas emissions in the province. IESO found that eliminating all gas generation from the electrical system would cut the province’s carbon emissions by 12.2Mt per year by 2030, resulting in Ontario ratepayers paying $464 per tonne of abated carbon…
Will Canada get smart and drop the Federal policies threatening Alberta and Ontario residents? Let's hope so. Canada needs new leadership and a completely new direction. What it’s doing now is delivering nothing but unaffordable economic misery.
#Canada #Ontario #Alberta #Blackouts #Coal #ElectricPrices #NaturalGas
How could even the dullest most limited analysts believe that you could dismantle a fully functional power system and replace it with a brand new system that only works part time and figure it would be cheaper?
Canada will less likely change their policies but it might be a lot easier to Annex the affected provinces instead where they can rid themselves of the notorious Greeniacs in Ottawa once and for all!!!
Money does talk.