Ontario hydro paying neighbours to take surplus energy
Posted Jan 11, 2011 05:53:08 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Ontario had such a surplus of energy in December, they paid neighbouring jurisdictions to take it.
There was so much surplus electricity flooding the market that, at times, Ontario generators even had to pay users as much as 13 cents a kilowatt hour to take surplus power off their hands.
Tom Adams, an energy consultant tells the Citizen, Ontario customers paid over $52 million last month to subsidize electricity to users in the U.S. and Quebec.
According to the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), on Jan. 1 alone, Ontario generators paid $1.46 million to external markets to rid themselves of power.
The Citizen says typically those negative prices only apply to a few isolated hours but on New Year’s Day, the hourly Ontario energy price for the whole day was negative – in fact it was the lowest daily average since records began.
Several factors account for the drop in demand, Adams said. One is the recession that began in 2008. Another is the decline of energy-intensive manufacturing industries, such as pulp and paper. A third is rising energy prices, which have led users to cut electricity consumption.
The current surplus won’t last. Ontario is to close its remaining 4,500 megawatts of coal-fired power by 2014. At the Pickering B nuclear plant, another 2,000 megawatts are nearing the end. And units at the Darlington and Bruce nuclear plants will undergo lengthy refurbishments.
