Windpower Alberta

[chuckChuck]

RWT. Why did you leave out mentioning the Crown owned Saskpower? A state owned utility that provides relatively good service and rates in a very rural province which is currently governed by conservatives.

They are also planning significant investments in wind and solar to increase capacity.

I am not sure why you are equating crown owned utilities with communism?

The bigger issue across the country is bad management decisions many of which occurred prior to any push for renewables.

[oneoff]

One line on the utility bill shouldn't be forgotten
"Demand charges" are quite significant to greater than 50KVA users as well as using any amount of of electricity at all (such as the oil industry). For the total startup amps of a single 5 HP motor run for a minute or so in any multimonth period generates an a bill of some $80.00 bucks for several following months. That's on top of the monthly meter charge and any real electrical consumption charges.
All demand charges are justified because of the potential of having to upgrade capacity of the system.

Now just why shouldn't the wind farm and solar sites be saddled with the costs of necessary system improvement that they cause.

They'd be looking at their share of $500,000 per km of new high voltage lines; and certainly $25,000 per km for fiber optics communication lines that someone has to pay for...and over a million for each transformer at the interconnecting station and still we a fed shit about how ridiculously cheap electricity is going to get.

[Hamloc]

I realize this is an old post but I read this in a CBC comment yesterday and checked the math very interesting.

A wind project is doing well to operate at a 33% power factor. In other words, these turbines over time produce at a rate of 200 MW not 600 MW. Over a year at 3.7 cents a kWh the gross revenue will be $64.8 million. Operations,maintenance, land leasing, insurance, parts, administration, service contracts, taxes, etc, estimated at the low end of the range will be about 1.5 cents a kWh. That means expenses will be $27.4 million, leaving $37.5 million in net income.

So from a $1 billion dollar investment they will net $37.5 million per year? Does this make sense to anyone on agriville? There must be something we are not being told! Just my opinion.

[WiltonRanch]

I realize this is an old post but I read this in a CBC comment yesterday and checked the math very interesting.

A wind project is doing well to operate at a 33% power factor. In other words, these turbines over time produce at a rate of 200 MW not 600 MW. Over a year at 3.7 cents a kWh the gross revenue will be $64.8 million. Operations,maintenance, land leasing, insurance, parts, administration, service contracts, taxes, etc, estimated at the low end of the range will be about 1.5 cents a kWh. That means expenses will be $27.4 million, leaving $37.5 million in net income.

So from a $1 billion dollar investment they will net $37.5 million per year? Does this make sense to anyone on agriville? There must be something we are not being told! Just my opinion.

Not to mention you still need a base load supply when the wind don’t blow.

[oneoff]

Quote "Now that I would like to see, me thinks you have your decimal in wrong place,o look there goes another flying pig." Unquote



Horse ....You know that the US Army has stated that "if you put enough thrust behind a pig....it will fly just fine"

[Horse]

Quote if you put enough thrust behind a pig it will fly just fine endquote
Now that would be quite a GOOSE, haha have a happy christmas

[wade]

Back when they approached us about putting up windmills, about 15 years ago, we had the impression it was all about the "green credits" back then. They would pay us surface rights, a small portion of revenue generated but would not even talk about sharing the green credit revenue back then. No, we didn't sign up!

[wade]

Back when they approached us about putting up windmills, about 15 years ago, we had the impression it was all about the "green credits" back then. They would pay us surface rights, a small portion of revenue generated but would not even talk about sharing the green credit revenue back then. No, we didn't sign up!

[oneoff]

product of Ontario’s 2009 Green Energy Act, the Global Adjustment fee is a charge billed to all hydro customers in the province.

For major manufacturers and large businesses, the fee appears separately on electricity bills. But for residential customers and small businesses, the fee is hidden – appearing on your electricity bill as a part of the per kilowatt hour charge.


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According to data obtained by Global News from the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), the organization responsible for managing Ontario’s energy system, residential customers and small businesses in Ontario paid an average of 7.9 cents per kilowatt hour in Global Adjustment fees last year.

So for every $100 in usage that appears on your electricity bill, $77 of that is the Global Adjustment fee. Meaning the cost of electricity use is only $23.

What exactly is included in the Global Adjustment fee?
First, there’s the difference between what the IESO pays energy producers for the electricity they produce, known as the contracted rate, and the actual fair market value of this electricity, known as the Hourly Ontario Energy Price, or HOEP.

In 2015, the average HOEP was 2.36 cents per kilowatt hour, while the IESO paid wind producers as much as 13 cents per kilowatt hour. The remaining 11-cent difference was then passed on to the consumer in the form of the Global Adjustment fee.

Solar producers, many of which signed contracts with the government for as long as 20 or 30 years, were paid as much as 80 cents per kilowatt hour for the energy they produced, despite the fact that fair market value for this energy was the same 2.36 cents per kilowatt hour. Here, too, the 78-cent difference was passed on to consumers.

And while the argument can be made that the Global Adjustment fee simply reflects the true cost of producing reliable, green electricity in the province, this ignores the fact that, in 2015 alone, Ontario sold more than 22.6 billion kilowatt hours of electricity – enough to power 2.5 million homes – to places like New York and Michigan at the fair market price of 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour – generating a loss of more than $1.7 billion for Ontario hydro customers.

So while Ontario customers are required to pay for producing green electricity, utility providers in the United States are able to access this same energy source for a fraction of the cost.

In other words, Ontarians pay the Global Adjustment fee, delivery fees, administration fees and HST, while American utility providers pay for the electricity alone.

The Global Adjustment fee also includes what’s known as “curtailing,” when the IESO pays energy producers not to produce electricity out of fear too much production could cause stress on the system and result in a blackout.

But when asked not to generate power, electricity producers must still be paid because the Government of Ontario initially agreed to purchase everything the energy producer’s facilities were capable of putting out.

The Global Adjustment fee also includes certain government conservation programs.

For example, when you receive a tax credit for purchasing new high-efficiency appliances or LED light-bulbs, that’s included within the Global Adjustment fee. When a delivery man takes away an old refrigerator for free, or when they recycle your old computer parts, the cost of these services are all part of the Global Adjustment fee.

Why conservation won’t make a difference
Over the past seven years, Ontario has signed numerous agreements with energy producers guaranteeing minimum levels of revenue regardless of how much energy they produce.




This is an article from Global News all about Ontario's "Global Adjustment fee" It really shows how part of a story can be so deliberately misleading. Anybody in Ontario feel good about paying the difference between energy exports and fair market value of that energy. Any economist think of an explanation except subsidizing surplus sales.


TransCanada, set to open their Napanee Generating Station later this year, signed an agreement with the Ontario Power Authority in 2012 that guaranteed the company would receive a minimum of $13.7 million per month once the plant comes online – even if they produce zero electricity.

“Essentially… TransCanada is being paid nearly $165 million a year to leave their power generating station running on idle,” said Parker Gallant, former vice president of TD Bank and an outspoken critic of the province’s green energy strategy.

With agreements similar to this in place across the province, Gallant thinks it’s no wonder hydro rates in Ontario continue to rise.

The easiest way to explain it, said Gallant, is that when energy consumption drops due to conservation, the Global Adjustment fee must be increased to make up the difference. So the less power Ontarians use, the higher their electricity costs must be in order to cover the minimum revenues energy producers are guaranteed.

[Oliver88]

In this weather wind power is non-existent.....natural gas and coal are keeping people alive.

Wind power is putting out 0.2% of its capability and supplying Alberta with 0.02% of their power needs currently. 💰💰💰