Wasting water: Ontario’s Environmental Disconnect of the Day

Wasting water: Ontario’s Environmental Disconnect of the Day | Canadian Energy Issues:

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Infra-red water faucets are now a fixture (pun intended) in many public washrooms. Everybody appears to have bought in to the conservation mantra: use as little as possible. Chief among the purveyors of the conservation ideology are the mainstream environmental organizations. These groups also push for renewable energy in the form of wind turbines and solar panels. Do they know that Ontario is, right this moment, wasting huge amounts of water because of wind turbines?
At the bottom of this post is a table comparing the electricity output of Ontario’s 49 hydro generators with that of its 18 wind farms on May 4 (last Saturday). I put the Hydro and Wind columns next to one another for easy comparison. You will note that generally increased wind output at night corresponded with lower hydro output. This is because of grid rules that favour wind. That is to say, when wind starts blowing and wind turbines produce more electricity, the market rules mean that other generators must throttle down so the grid doesn’t blow up.
The kicker is, wind costs at least 11 cents per kilowatt-hour, and hydro costs at most 4 cents. 

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