Now 69 Not a Willing Host communities!

Photo from Billings Twp website

Billings Township (on Manitoulin Island) passed a resolution on September 16 to the effect it will not accept the installation of any industrial wind turbines.The council said it required assurance that the power generators were "benign."
This is the most recent municipality to declare its non-acceptance of huge wind power projects since the Premier first stated earlier this year that her government would only put wind power projects in communities that were willing. It is important to note that these 69 communities are members of the 90 or so Ontario communities that could be involved in wind power.

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Online petition for Ostrander Point: 1400 and counting!!

If you haven't already, please take a moment and sign the online petition concerning Ostrander Point. As you know, this power project was halted after Prince Edward County and Ontario citizens donated their after-tax dollars to fight the Ministry of the Environment and the wind power developer to save this unique environment. Now, our own government is appealing the decision, with the developer, and Ostrander Point---a rare alvar environment and the locale for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds--is in danger again.
Sign the petition.
Send a message to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Save_Ostrander_Point_In_Prince_Edward_County/?erlqsfb
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Ontario's "voodoo math" and electricity system

From Sarnia area local business paper First Monday, an opinion piece by Brian Keelan. (Who needs correcting on the notion that wind power generation is "carbon free---wind needs a real source of power such as natural gas behind it.) We especially appreciate Mr Keelan's observation that the Liberal government's energy policies have effectively resulted in "civil war" in Ontario. Read on...

I am furious green

Sat, 09/07/2013 - 11:25 -- Brian Keelan

Here in Sarnia Lambton we have been hearing that Nova is considering building a new polyethylene plant to go along with the three plants they already have (and which employ about 830 of Sarnia/Lambton's taxpayers in what are widely believed to be great jobs). But… that polyethylene plant is also being considered for the Gulf coast of the USA due to a much better energy price; instead of paying 3.5 to 4 cents a kilowatt hour down there, the Ontario Government is asking them to pay over 10 cents a kilowatt hour up here… and these guys use a lot of kilowatts.
This project is therefore at risk due to the high cost of energy here in Ontario so, Nova – along with the residents of Sarnia/Lambton – is looking to the Ontario government to do something about it. But the Ontario government is reluctant to do anything since if they give Nova a 'break,' they are just going to tack the 'break' on to all the citizens of Ontario's electricity bills They don't want the voters in their precious 416 and 905 area codes upset because the government caters to them due to their voting power. Why give a break for those of us out here in the 519 area code who don't regularly vote for them? Thus we are being punished and/or ignored.
Nova has what I think is a neat way to solve this dilemma without the Province of Ontario having to do anything more than use their head. Let them build their own electrical generation plant right here in Sarnia to power their three existing plants plus the new polyethylene plant and we get a new power plant to boot this means more good jobs and taxpayers for Sarnia/Lambton. But the fly in the ointment is that Nova would have to cross a public road with their transmission lines and they are legally forbidden to do that since that is the "domain" of Ontario Power Generation who in effect are telling them, "We know you can do it more efficiently than we can but we need you to pay the going rate."
At this point I'd like to tell Kathleen and her crew something my dad told me many, many years ago that served me well: "You're a fool if you think anyone is ever going to pay even five cents for the privilege of doing business with you. Sure, your service has to be great and so do your people and your products but if you aren't there when it comes to price, you are dreaming."
I don't even know who to get mad at for that since our electricity costs involve so much voodoo math. As simply as I can figure it: our rates are determined by the Ontario Energy Board (the OEB) who regulate the Time Of Use plan (the TOU) as well as the Regulated Price Plan (the RPP) to determine our electricity rates. The basic cost of electricity consists of two elements; the Hourly Ontario Electricity Price (the HOEP) which comes from Ontario Power Generation (the OPG) and a vague catch-all factor known as the Global Adjustment (the GA). The GA is where OPG would add the cost of the price-break they would give to Nova (if they want the business). By law, OPG can only make this GA/HOEP price adjustment twice a year and they don't even have to raise rates unless they really need the money. Sadly for us, they really do have to do it because the Ontario government is way too deep in their own bottomless money pit to help them out. But does it really matter where the money that the OEB gets comes from anyway?
"Ask not from whom the money comes… it comes from thee stupid." While they rob Peter to pay Paul and then rob Paul to pay Peter back, it will ultimately be passed on to you (thee) and me and then our kids as we try to get out of this financial quagmire due in large part to Ontario's financially flawed Green Energy policies which have led us to this Financial Energy Crisis or as I like to call it, the FEC.

Read the entire column here.
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When it comes to cheap power, who is Michigan and New York's BFF? Ontario!

Parker Gallant and Scott Luft (of the Cold Air blog) have teamed up for this disheartening analysis of what happens to Ontario's surplus power. Short answer: we're giving it away!
Here is the posting from the Energy Probe website.

Parker Gallant and Scott Luft: Michigan and New York’s best friend–Ontario

(September 18, 2013) The press releases flowing from the Ministry of Energy’s offices have been many over the past several years and claim a variety of wonderful things despite the mundane attributes of the electricity sector.
One such release dated January 12, 2012 claimed Ontario earned $13 million by exporting its surplus power in December 2011 and that it “keeps costs down” for ratepayers. It also said 20,000 jobs had been created and that the GEA was on track to create 50,000 jobs by the end of 2012. Fast forward a year and a half to a press release dated June 20, 2013 about the revised Samsung contract which claimed that the GEA had created just 31,000 jobs.
The latter claim indicates that the target was missed by at least 19,000 jobs. We now know that most of those jobs were short-term construction jobs to erect wind turbines and install solar panels. We no longer see press releases that claim we earn money from selling our surplus power to the likes of Michigan and New York, perhaps because the Auditor General in his 2011 Annual Report stated that “from 2005 to the end of our audit in 2011, Ontario received $1.8 billion less for its electricity exports than what it actually cost electricity ratepayers of Ontario.” When you examine the Independent Electricity System Operator’s data you quickly learn why the Ministry no longer brags about earning revenue from exports or keeping costs down for ratepayers. The exporting of our surplus power was the subject of a joint article over two years ago but the impact at the time was at a lower dollar level.
Looking at data for the first eight months of 2013 and comparing it to the same period in 2012 discloses that while we are exporting more power (an increase of 23% year over year) it is costing Ontario’s ratepayers more. For the first eight months of 2012 we sold Michigan and New York 8.3 million megawatt hours (MWh) or enough to power over 800,000 homes and for the first eight months of 2013 Michigan and New York bought 10.1 million MWh or enough to power over one million Ontario homes. The market value (Hourly Ontario Energy Price) of power sold to NY and Michigan in 2012 indicates approximate revenues of $182 million and $262 million for 2013. On the surface it makes it appear that Ontario earned $80 million more but that sale price doesn’t include what we Ontario ratepayers refer to as the Global Adjustment (GA) which is described by IESO as:
“The Global Adjustment (GA) is the difference between the total payments made to certain contracted or regulated generators/demand management projects, and market revenues.”
The GA is the huge basket that picks up the difference between the guaranteed “contracted” generation and the market price (the amount we sold our power to Michigan and New York for). That basket has been growing at an incredible pace over the past few years as renewable energy (wind and solar) are added to the grid.

What that means is that Ontario’s ratepayers wound up subsidizing those export sales. We estimate that in the first eight months of 2012 Ontario’s ratepayers picked up the GA costs of $420 million and in 2013 the subsidy bill was $584 million or an increase of 39% for the same period. Put another way; for each kilowatt hour (kWh) of exports in 2012, Ontario subsidized GA costs of 5.1 cents per kWh and for the same period in 2013 that subsidy had jumped to 5.8 cents per kWh. At the time of the Auditor General’s report, only 20 months ago, the subsidy was estimated to be 3 to 4 cents per kWh.
Since the Auditor General reported on the cost of exports, we estimate the net exports through New York and Michigan interties* have sold for more than $1.2 billion less than Ontarians paid for the same amount of electricity, which makes the estimated gas plant moves seem cheap as those subsidies will continue to grow. The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) has delivered contracts to the wind and solar developers that will increase their generation capacity by upwards of 60% with most of that cost flowing to the GA basket.
What Ontario exported in the most recent eight month period is equivalent to what might be produced (intermittently when it’s not needed) by 3,700 MW of wind turbines (another 1,700 towers spread throughout Ontario) or 8,000 MW of solar panels (using 64,000 acres of land). The foregoing assumes wind turbines produce at a 29% level of capacity and solar panels at a 15% level.
The interesting and disturbing fact that has emerged since Premier Wynne has become the leader of the Liberal Party is that we have seen an acceleration in the implementation of contracts awarded for wind turbine projects despite the downsizing of the Samsung contract. Under Wynne’s short term as our Premier, Ontario has awarded as many, if not more Renewable Energy Approvals for wind turbine projects as were granted under McGuinty’s term. The reasoning behind this sudden rush to wind has caused consternation throughout the Province as 67** municipalities have declared themselves “unwilling hosts”, which they were invited to do by Premier Wynne in her Throne Speech. While mouthing a desire for conversation with the “unwilling hosts,” Wynne is set to add more than 3000 MW of “transmission connected” wind capacity in the next 18 months, double the amount existing when she became Premier.
The projection of an $8-billion annual Global Adjustment basket in the “Power Dumping” article of two years ago looks set to become a reality near the end of the current year. In the interim, both Michigan and New York are no doubt very happy the Ontario Liberals have created such a mess of the Ontario electricity system and hopefully appreciate the generosity of Ontario’s ratepayers.

Parker Gallant is a retired bank executive and a former director of Energy Probe Research Foundation. Scott Luft is a former retailer with a statistical interest in Ontario electricity data.
As with all independent bloggers on this site, the views of the authors do not necessarily reflect those of Energy Probe.

 * An "intertie" is where the connection point is to export or import electricity between different grids and represents the flow of electricity.  The IESO do a daily report here: http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/marketdata/intertieSchedule.asp
**Editor's note: 68 communities have declared they are Not a Willing Host as of September 18


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CTV News: anti-wind protestors steal the show at International Plowing Match

In a quiet, peaceable, yet powerful display of the rift between urban and rural Ontario due to the Liberal government's energy policies, which include allowing predatory wind power developers to install huge wind power generating facilities throughout Ontario's quiet rural communities, rural residents gathered at the International Plowing Match opening ceremonies today.
Here is the story from CTV News, London.
http://london.ctvnews.ca/international-plowing-match-opens-with-anti-wind-protestors-1.1458452
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Premier, Liberal Float at plowing match greeted by protesters

Premier Kathleen Wynne and members of the Liberal Party were greeted by sign-carrying rural residents as they rode on the Liberal float in the International Plowing Match parade this morning.
  Several dozen people carried signs denoting "Not a Willing Host" with Ontario community names.
  The Plowing Match continues until Friday.

Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli waves as Not a Willing Host signs wave back

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View from Quebec: you have too much power but you're still signing wind contracts?

Doesn't make sense to us either. Especially when you factor in the economic losses from tourists staying away (as in the Algoma Region which is soon to be scarred with turbines) and depressed property values, Ontario's rush to wind power is unexplainable. But, when you don't do any cost-benefit analysis to support your decisions, "a failed experiment" is what you get.
Here, a view from the Montreal Gazette.

Ontario to pay idle wind farms

Province has a power surplus but signed 20-year contracts with wind-power producers

CPSeptember 11, 2013 7:00 AM

 

0

 

 

Wind turbines dot the shoreline near Port Burwell, Ont. Ontario has signed generous contracts with wind producers for about 5,800 megawatts of electricity, only about 1,500 of which is connected to the grid.

Photograph by: Geoff Robins , THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO — Ontario will start paying wind power generators today not to produce electricity, but the government says the move will actually save ratepayers big bucks.
Ontario has had a surplus of power since 2006, but until now, the province paid for all the electricity generated from industrial wind mills, even when it wasn’t needed.
Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli says the system operator can now order wind producers not to generate power, and will pay them — just as it pays Bruce nuclear — not to produce electricity when it’s not needed.
He says they are paid at a reduced rate that will save the province $200 million a year just on the wind mills.
Ontario has signed generous contracts with wind producers for about 5,800 megawatts of electricity, only about 1,500 of which is connected to the grid.
The Progressive Conservatives say paying wind power producers with 20-year contracts not to generate electricity shows the Liberals’ green energy act “is a failed social experiment.”
Critics point out wind power is unreliable and can’t be counted on in peak demand periods like gas-fired generation or nuclear plants.
Meanwhile, Chiarelli says Ontario is making a net profit of up to $6 billion a year on importing and exporting electricity, a big turnaround from 2003 when the province paid $500 million to import power because it didn’t have enough to meet demand.
It’s not unusual for neighbouring jurisdictions to sell each other electricity, but the province used to frequently have to pay Quebec or New York state to take the excess power off its hands.

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

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Not a Willing Host communities heard at AMO

Representatives of the now 64 communities in Ontario who have declared themselves Not a Willing Host to giant wind power developments, made their voices heard yesterday at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario convention, in Ottawa. Questions were raised during the afternoon "bearpit" session, during which Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli appeared to contradict himself, by saying that preserving valuable Ontario farmland and the quality of rural communities was a priority and then later saying that wind power was necessary for the province. He also said that there is no chance of giving municipalities a "veto" on wind power projects.
   Enniskillen Mayor Kevin Marriott remarked later that he was appalled by the Minister's "doublespeak."
   The municipal representatives held a meeting later in the day, and discussed what the effects of wind power had been on their communities to date, and what options were left open to them as they struggle to protect the health and financial wellbeing of their citizens.
   Here is a report from today's Ottawa Citizen. Comments are open at the time of writing.
  

Windmill opponents demand province give power to municipalities

 

By Teresa Smith, OTTAWA CITIZENAugust 20, 2013

 

 

 

Sixty-two Ontario communities have declared themselves ‘unwilling hosts’ to provincially approved industrial wind-power projects. They are demanding that Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government allow municipal governments to choose whether and where to put them.

Photograph by: Peter J. Thompson , National Post

OTTAWA — A coalition of 62 communities in Ontario have declared themselves “unwilling hosts” to provincially approved windmills and they’re demanding that Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government allow municipal governments to choose whether and where to put industrial wind projects.
A group of residents in North Gower, a region of Ottawa that the province pegged for a large-scale wind-power project, is supportive of the coalition’s demands, but Ottawa is not officially a member of the unwilling hosts coalition.
Progressive Conservative Party leader Tim Hudak told 1,600 delegates gathered at the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference this week that, if elected, he would “scrap the Green Energy Act” entirely. If communities don’t want windmills, the municipality should not be “forced” to house “industrial wind turbines,” Hudak said.
New Democratic Party leader Andrea Horwath said “short-sighted” decisions on the energy file have created a needless backlash against wind power in communities that feel inadequately consulted.”
The Liberal government’s 2009 Green Energy Act gave the province control over the location of wind energy projects but, in May, the province announced changes that will require developers to work more closely with municipalities. Energy projects that are part of a co-op, owned by a First Nation or at least half-owned by a municipality, will get priority for the Feed-in Tariff program “which is good, because if the private company has community support already, then the project will be more successful,” said Kristopher Stevens, executive director of Ontario Sustainable Energy Association (OSEA).
To that end, Wynne has asked the OSEA, a non-profit organization, to raise awareness in communities slated for the turbine projects about the benefits of hosting, including the financial gains that can come from being power generators in a cash-strapped economy.
“It’s going to require a transformation in the way we think about energy,” said Stevens, who noted one of the best things about the Green Energy Act is that it supports smaller scale projects.
“What we want is to have lots of points of light — sort of like the Internet — so that if part of the system goes off, the rest of the system can isolate it and keep running.”
He said such a change would prevent blackouts like the one that happened in much of Eastern Ontario and the Northeastern United States 10 years ago. “What happened in Ohio affected everyone because were pushing power from one centralized place,” said Stevens.
So far, 62 municipalities across Ontario have declared themselves not willing hosts to wind-power projects, citing health problems and loss in property values as their main concerns.
However, while research into the issue is limited. Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, in a 2010 report, concluded that “the scientific evidence available to date does not demonstrate a direct causal link between wind turbine noise and adverse health effects.”
The report said that while some residents might find the sound and vibrations from nearby wind turbines annoying, the sound is not sufficient to cause hearing problems and there is no scientific evidence the vibrations cause health issues.

The report recommended that “community engagement at the outset of planning for wind turbines is important and may alleviate health concerns.”
Health Canada has launched a major study into the effect of wind turbines on health.
The Marlborough 1 project in North Gower is on hold until the province announces its new procurement process. However wind developer Prowind, headquartered in Germany, has said it intends to reapply when the new process is in place.
In a letter to Ottawa Wind Concerns, a North Gower anti-wind turbine group, Mayor Jim Watson reiterated that the province is responsible for granting approval for wind projects and called the regulatory regime “quite onerous.” However, before any project is approved, he said, the city “will review all documentation and information relating to the proposed development and fully participate in any such consultative process.”
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Melancthon Mayor to Wynne: get rid of Green Energy Act

Here from yesterday's Orangeville Banner, the story of an Ontario Mayor who has had more than enough. Full story here.

There will be one turbine per 15 people in Melancthon if Chinese-owned Dufferin Power gets its way

Orangeville Banner

ByChris Halliday

Melancthon Mayor Bill Hill is urging Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne to step up and address what he labels the “seriously flawed” powers of the Green Energy Act (GEA).

    It’s no secret Melancthon council and Dufferin Wind Power Inc., which received approval to operate a 99 MW wind farm in the township and construct a 230 kV transmission line to Amaranth, have a less than amicable relationship.

    With Dufferin Wind filing for expropriation, taking the township to court over the storage of wind turbines, and recently applying to have the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) institute a road use agreement, the township has reached a breaking point, Hill said.

    “People are incensed by the bullying tactics employed by Dufferin Wind Power Inc.,” Hill wrote in his letter sent to Wynne on Tuesday (Aug. 13).

    “The reason they can act that way is because of the flawed Green Energy Act that allows them to steam roll over municipalities and individuals.”

    At nearly every turn, Hill contends the Chinese-owned wind power developer has brought the GEA hammer down to get whatever it wants. The mayor is now urging the premier to “intervene” into the situation.

    “It does appear your government has chosen to favour foreign owned wind farm developers, over the interest and livelihood of Ontario farmers,” Hill said. “It is imperative that further charges are made.”

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Farmers Forum: agriculture deserves more than occasional minister

Farmers Forum Editor Patrick Meagher has a few thoughts on Kathleen Wynne's dual role as Premier and Minister of Agriculture. Somebody is getting the short end of the stick, he says, and guess who might that be (again)? Rural Ontario...
Here is his editorial from today's edition of the paper.

When you're passionate about something, you commit time to it. You'll even spend your off-time mining for ideas, using a drive-home or late-night quiet time to form a vision. But does anyone think our Minister of Agriculture Kathleen Wynne sits up at night wondering what great ideas she can bring to farming? How can she? She's not only part-time, but her bigger portfolio is running the province as premier. And now she has decided she will also be the Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs.
  Maybe she should be called the "occasional" Minister of Agriculture.
  This wouldn't be so embarrassing if she were spending time on these portfolios. But in the last two months, she has expended an abundance of energy on photo-ops, campaigning for by-elections, and dodging the gas plant scandal.

  So she's not only the occasional minister of two portfolios--did I mention she's also the premier--she has a huge and growinf cancer on her watch.
  A paper trail has confirmed that Wynne was in the know about cancelling a gas plant to save a Liberal seat in the 2011 election. She was the co-chair of the Liberal campaign for re-election and the Liberal campaign agreed to the cancellation. So she is guilty of agreeing to squander millions. Perhaps she didn't know how much at the time but the total is about $300 million*. It would take the average Canadian about 6,300 years to pay that back, if every penny of each year's earnings were not spent on anything else.
  Wynne has apologized for the past but is having a hard time moving on, partly because, contrary to the rules of government, Liberal government officials deleted thousands of e-mails.
   Then suddenly in late July, an amazing 3,226 lost e-mails from 11 Liberal staffers and politicians, including 1,233 of Wynne's e-mails, resurfaced on backup tapes. It will take some time to extract the evidence, but it certainly looks like a smoking gun.
   Maybe these new e-mails will exonerate Wynne and she indeed can get on with actual governing, although that's usually why e-mails disappear in the first place.
  As this ugly plot thickens, and the trickle of damning e-mails and internal documents turns into a river of evidence, it is becoming more and more clear the ship is foundering. Dalton McGuinty** fled before everything hit the fan and Wynne's future seems more uncertain than ever. Did I call her an occasional minister? Might have to make that "occasional" and "temporary."
  Even as it stands, with Wynne walking under a cloud, agriculture deserves better than minsiterial flyovers and brief acts of presence.

Contact: news@farmersforum.com

*editor's note: the cost is estimated at $585 million, for ONE gas plant; the Auditor General's report is due August 21st on the other cancelled plant
** editor's note: Mr McGuinty is now a "fellow" at Harvard University
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CBC: Liberals 'stung' in by-elections

This story from the CBC reports on the meaning of the results of the five by-elections held yesterday, and has links to actual election results.

Byelections are, in the words of Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, both “unpredictable” and “tough for government.”
“They’re… a pretty risk-free way for people to send a message to government.”
It turns out Wynne was right on all counts. The byelections were tough and voters did send a message to the Liberals.
Wynne remains premier but her Liberal party — battered by the ongoing gas plant scandal and the misspending of millions of taxpayer dollars at eHealth and Ornge — is licking some new, though not necessarily fatal, political wounds.
Five Liberal strongholds and two wins to show for it: Toronto’s east-end Scarborough-Guildwood and Ottawa South.
Three losses: Etobicoke-Lakeshore, London West and Windsor-Tecumseh.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/08/02/pol-ontario-byelection-analysis-fisher.html


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