Feed-in Tariff
Hundreds ask questions in Southgate on Samsung wind plant
Dundalk meeting: community has questions, Samsung has no answers
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| Plenty of questions: Samsung has no answers |
Hundreds gathered last evening in the Dundalk Arena to hear speakers on the proposed Samsung wind and solar project which will see 56 giant turbines in the Southgate community, and 400 acres of land covered with solar arrays.
A report from a member of the Southgate community:
Six Nations to invest in wind power projects
Brantford Expositor, March 10, 2014
OHSWEKEN – Six Nations council is still working on the implementation of two wind farm projects as it goes deeper into the green energy field.
Council has been working for about four years on the Gunn’s Hill Wind Farm, on privately owned agricultural land in Norwich Township; and the Port Ryerse Wind Project just outside the hamlet on the shores of Lake Erie.
Lonny Bomberry, director of lands and resources, says the two projects are too good an investment for Six Nations to pass up, even if a negative political environment still pervades wind power projects.
“There’s no question wind power green energy is still a good deal,” he said. “The projects have a fixed rate of return that can generate good revenue. It’s a good way for First Nations to become involved in the energy field.”
The Gunn’s Hill project is farther along and close to implementation. Although “there isn’t a final determination yet,” Bomberry said prospects of implementation are still rated as good.
The project will be owned and operated by Gunn’s Hill Windfarm Inc. Prowind Canada is proposing to develop it on privately owned, agricultural land as well as Norwich Township municipal easements for electrical lines.
The project was awarded a FIT (Feed-In-Tariff) contract with the Ontario Power Authority in 2011 to supply 25 megawatts with 10 wind turbines.
According to the business plan, Prowind has invited Six Nations to be a 10% equity partner. Its contribution will be $1.8 million, which is estimated to generate revenue in excess of $3 million over 20 years.
Bomberry said he anticipates the project will be ready to proceed in the next two to three months.
“The financing that has to be brokered is still the main question,” he said, noting the financing will likely come in the form of a bank loan.
Bomberry said Six Nations is still in productive discussions with Prowind Canada and partners in Gunn’s Hill Windfarm.
Read the full story here.
Parker Gallant: Canada’s biggest ‘Ponzi scheme’
Up today on Energy Probe is Parker Gallant’s analysis of Ontario’s Green Energy Act. Read on for who benefits (hint: it’s not you).
Parker Gallant: Ontario’s Ministry of Energy creates Canada’s biggest Ponzi scheme
The press release on September 24, 2013 from the Attorney General’s (AG) office was headlined: “Attorney General recovers $17 million for Victims of Ponzi Scheme” and went on to describe how the money had been seized and sent to the American authorities in respect to a US-orchestrated “Ponzi Scheme.”
The definition of “Ponzi Scheme” from the “Legal Dictionary” is: “A fraudulent investment plan in which the investments of later investors are used to pay earlier investors, giving the appearance that the investments of the initial participants dramatically increase in value in a short amount of time.”
In the case of Ontario’s Ministry of Energy those “investments of later investors” is the billions of dollars extracted from the pockets of the approximately 4.4 million ratepayers spread throughout the Province of Ontario. In Ontario, however, the extraction of monies from “later investors” is considered legal under the Green Energy and Green Economy Act (GEA) passed by the Liberal Government under Premier, Dalton McGuinty.
McGuinty, via the Energy Minister, directed the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) to contract with investors who would be willing to put solar panels on their roof or on the ground. The OPA complied and offered above market rates and investors flocked to the OPA submitting thousands of offers and they dutifully signed them up offering to pay up to 80.2 cents per kilowatt hour.
The OPA just released a list as of June 30, 2013 they refer to as “Active FIT Contracts”. The list of approximately 1800 Feed-in Tariff (FIT) contracts don’t include the MicroFIT contracts but, according to an OPA spokesperson, include what the OPA refer to as “Capacity Allocation Exempt” (CAE) contracts. A separate undated list of the latter referenced as “Phase 2” has 800 contracts noted. The bulk of the two lists are “roof mounted” solar installations with a smattering of biogas, solar ground mounted, waterpower and a few others but about 85% are roof mounted solar contracts.
Scrolling through the lists one finds many familiar names such as IKEA, Canadian Tire, Walmart, RBC, Toronto Hydro, Durham College, Powerstream, London Hydro, Loblaws, etc. etc. You also find hundreds of addresses and numbered companies that don’t identify either the “applicant” or the “supplier”. One would assume the applicant (Phase 2) or supplier (June 30, 2013 report) are one and the same but the carryover from the Phase 2 report to the OPA list switches the descriptive terminology.
The OPA spokesperson told me that: “Projects on the March 31, 2010, CAE list that are not on the June 30, 2013, list of active FIT contracts were those that have either been terminated or were not accepted/executed. Those projects are not included in the June 30, 2013, total of 814 MW of solar in commercial operation.”
Investigating that premise allows you to determine that contracts on the Phase 2 list, as an example, in the name of “Canadian Tire” or one of the “Loblaws” trade names disappeared. On reviewing the addresses however a search reveals that both “AMP1” or “MOM Solar LP” are listed as “suppliers” for addresses identified as “Canadian Tire” stores. Canadian Tire, who appeared to have as many as 79 contracts (over 15 megawatts [MW]) on the Phase 2 list, is suddenly at zero (0) on the June 30, 2013 list. If those 15 MW produced at 15% of capability they would generate almost $14 million in annual revenue at $700. per MW hour and $280 million over 20 years.
The two lists also disclose that many other retailers have taken advantage of the rates first offered for roof mounted solar over 10 kilowatts (kW) which was 71.3 cents per kWh (hour). As another example; Loblaws has been very aggressive with 74 contracts under the “Loblaws, Real Canadian Superstores, Zehrs, No Frills” monikers and another 136 under the name of “Fresh from the Sun Energy Inc.” from the OPA’s March 10, 2010 list. The latter were on the “Phase 2” report but the OPA listed only14 contracts and that name doesn’t even appear on the June 30, 2013 list. So what happened?
Loblaws and its iterations had contracts in excess of 20 megawatts (MW) of nameplate capacity. Those 20 MW of solar roof mounted could generate annual revenue for Loblaws of approximately $18 million per annum ($360 million over 20 years) at a generation rate of 15% of rated solar capacity at an average price of $700. per MWh. Partially reviewing the OPA June 30, 2013 list, we note Loblaws are down to 74 contracts with 17.4 MW of listed capacity. The question I posed to the OPA spokesperson asked why the name change on some of those early Loblaws contracts?
The response back was what we have come to expect and contradicted the earlier e-mail (above) from the OPA spokesperson:
“FIT contracts permit the supplier to assign the contract or apply to the OPA for a change of control. It is not unusual for FIT contracts to be assigned to another company, for ex., a subsidiary, or for a portion or all of the project to be sold to another party. Through these processes, the Supplier Legal Name would change, but the term, end date and financial terms of the contract remain the same, so there is no additional exposure for the ratepayer when these changes occur.
The contract details that the OPA can provide to a third party are subject to confidentiality provisions, which is included in Article 7 of the FIT contract, available on the FIT website. With respect to Canadian Tire and Loblaw contracts, you will need to contact those suppliers for specific details.”
The lists include schools, municipal arenas, community centres, hospitals, etc., but don’t include the Toronto District School Boards contracts for the 311 schools that will be outfitted with solar panels according to an article in the National Post on September 20, 2013. This will allow the TDSB to repair 32 school roofs but it’s unclear how much the Board’s partner “School top Solar LP” is retaining out of the approximately $550 per MW they will be paid for the rated capacity of 33 MW. Those 33 MW should generate almost $24 million per annum or $480 million over the 20-year term of the contract. This makes one wonder if the TDSB are poor negotiators, or those school roofs cost millions each?
In reviewing the three OPA lists it is almost impossible to connect them because, as an example, the Fresh from the Sun Energy Inc. stores on the list fail to include full addresses and the June 30, 2013 list often does not even include an address under the multiple contacts awarded (or sold to) companies like MOM Solar LP or a supplier referred to as AMP1 (legal name) for which no information can be found!
Take the Money and Run:
As the Steve Miller Band said, “Take the Money and Run”; if I were a Loblaws or a Canadian Tire executive and wanted to reward shareholders, I would be tempted to “flip” the contracts. By simply having those contracts Loblaws and Canadian Tire have a huge guaranteed cash flow they could easily sell to a third party like Moms Solar LP (backed and partially owned by Morgan Stanley) or the anonymous AMP1! By selling the contract they can add it to their revenue stream. A search of annual reports, for Canadian Tire and Loblaws comes up empty in respect to those contracts.
The retailers, municipalities, school boards, etc. who have obtained these contracts are either receiving a subsidy (private sector) or a hidden tax, for the benefit of the province (schools, colleges , hospitals, etc) and municipalities (community centres, local electricity distributors, arenas, etc.). Perhaps this is Premier Wynne’s reference to “revenue tools” means! All of the foregoing sell their generated electricity at prices up to 20 times the cost of power generated by OPG or Bruce Power and those same retailers, school boards, colleges, etc. buy back the power at the same (or lower) rates paid by 4.4 million residential ratepayers. Those subsidies/hidden taxes wind up in the Global Adjustment pot and those “later investors”, pay them for the next 20 years.
The “Ponzi Scheme” created by the GEA for just the “solar” portion of the GEA will be in excess of $1.3 billion each year for the next 20 years once the full contracted solar (approximately 2,000 MW) is hooked to the grid. The cost of the FIT contracted solar will add $300 per year to each ratepayer’s bill.
At $26 billion over the 20 year period of the contracts this must represent the largest “Ponzi Scheme” ever perpetrated in North America and the poor ratepayers didn’t even have the ability to opt out of being a “later investor”.
If the ratepayers of Ontario got the AG to declare the GEA a “Ponzi Scheme” and pushed for the recovery of the billions of dollars they have been forced to pay, Minister Gerretsen would have something to really brag about!
Parker Gallant,
October 1, 2013
Parker Gallant is a retired bank executive and a former director of Energy Probe Research Foundation. As with all independent bloggers on this site, Parker’s views do not necessarily reflect those of Energy Probe.
Terence Corcoran: Ontario’s power disaster
Those of us opposing industrial wind power generation projects in places where no such industrial activity should ever be, have known how crazy Ontario’s power policies have been, despite the bland patronizing comments from government and the insinuations from the predatory wind power development lobby.
In today’s Financial Post, editor Terence Corcoran takes a grim view and refers to a damning new report from the CD Howe Institute.
For almost five years FP Comment has inveighed against the Ontario government’s profoundly uneconomic and costly electricity regime, a dictatorial and monopolist system that uses taxes and subsidies to greenify the power system of the largest provincial economy in Canada. As I wrote in 2009: “In the midst of a major economic meltdown, and with looming budget deficits totaling more than $18-billion, now might not be the best time for the government of Ontario to be embarking on a crushing new green energy policy that could add billions to the province’s electricity costs. But Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is nothing if not immune to the folly of his own righteous policies and the fiscal crisis he faces as a result.”
Since then, via former Canadian banker Parker Gallant’s ongoing series — Ontario’s Power Trip — along with reports from consultant Tom Adams and many others, the growing absurdity of the regime has been detailed and documented on this page: Rising costs, market distorting feed-in-tariffs, subsidies to wind and solar, exports of power to New York at below cost — not to mention the $1-billion scandal over cancelled gas plants.
The burden on the economy has yet to be fully measured, but the cost to consumers is easy to identify. In 2007, the all-in retail price of electricity was 10.38 cents per kilowatt hour. Today, the price for the same electricity is about 15.5 cents — a 50% increase imposed on consumers despite a recession that saw economic growth fall along with electricity demand.
Read the entire column here.
Parker Gallant: Hydro One and Ontario Energy Ministers–smarter? You judge
Hydro One and our Energy Ministers: Getting Smarter? You be the Judge!
Three bills in three weeks from Hydro One and a new line on the bill: “Miscellaneous Adjustment” got this writer wondering, why? The first bill came with an insert with the heading “Important Information about your enclosed Hydro One bill” and went on to explain that after they had “changed the meter at your premises, we experienced an issue which prevented the data from your meter from being processed in a timely manner in our system.” The meter they changed was a “smart meter” Hydro One installed a few years ago, so I assume this is a “smarter” meter. Calling the number on the insert allowed me to confirm with Hydro One that the meter change was due to a “communication problem.”
The upsetting part of the final bill is that when the all-in price of my power is calculated (including the costs of electricity, delivery, regulatory and debt retirement charge) it turned out to be 29 cents a kilowatt hour (kWh) and when I looked at my bill from November 2008 the all in charge was 16.5 cents a kWh. So in less than five years, the price had risen by 81%.
We’re doing our best to be responsible power consumers: we consumed less power than before and 71% of the billed electricity was in “off-peak” hours.
If one looks back this is what then Premier McGuinty said in his Throne speech of October 12, 2005 about smart meters: “Consumers can look forward to getting smart meters that will help them save money by telling them when they can pay less.”
An 81-% increase? Sounds like another broken government promise!
Those who have Hydro One as their local distribution company (LDC) will recall that only a few months ago, they sent another insert about a “new billing system” which allows them to bill on a “real time” basis. In effect this was a $160-million grab from ratepayers, perhaps to ensure their profits grow and that they can continue to pay dividends to the Province ($370 million in 2012). Profitability however, doesn’t cover off employee pension and benefit requirements as noted by DBRS, the Canadian bond rating agency, who listed Hydro One as # 8 on their recent list of worst funded pensions in Canada. Perhaps they should be funding their pension fund instead of making big dividend payments to the Ontario Ministry of Finance, but that might force Finance Minister Sousa to make some tough spending decisions.
My comments on “smart meters” are not new: back in July 2010 I pointed out that in a 3,400-page submission by Hydro One for a rate increase, the installed cost per smart meter was $700.54. That was confirmed by an exchange with a Hydro One officer. Now, the smart meters are having to be replaced? And not for the first time: Hydro One has needed to replace smart meters back in 2010 when the Newmarket Era carried an article about meter replacement in Keswick, Sutton and Mount Albert. My suspicion is that the form letter in our recent bill wasn’t the only one: who else in Prince Edward County and other parts of the province got it?
So, now, one wonders about the promises made for those smart meters. At $700.54 cents per meter the cost of replacing the old analog meter at our place is now $1,400.00; the Hydro One 2012 Annual Report indicates they are charging $1.52 per month as a recovery cost. At that rate, it will take them 76 years to recover their costs. Will Hydro One be spending hundreds of millions each year on “smart meters” instead of upgrading the important infrastructure such as transmission lines, transformers, etc.?
An interesting story recently came out of Germany: the German Federal Ministry of Economics published a study by Ernst & Young which basically concluded, no rollout for smart meters. Why? Ernst & Young did a cost/benefit study and concluded:
“The study comes to the conclusion that smart meters in particular for small consumers are not cost-efficient, as the potential savings would be well below actual costs of smart meters and their operation.”
In Ontario we seem to do things differently as was pointed out by the Auditor General in his 2011 report. Jim McCarter said that the initiatives behind the Green Energy and Green Economy Act were not based on a cost-benefit analysis. While not speaking directly to the issue of “smart meters” and their installation throughout the province this writer believes that the conclusions of a cost-benefit analysis would have reached the same endpoint as the Ernst and Young study completed for Germany.
When the McGuinty government gave its Throne Speech in 2005, the Ontario Energy Minister (Dwight Duncan) had already issued a directive to the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) dated July 14, 2004 to Howard Wetson, Chair, of the OEB (the Ontario Power Authority did not exist at that time) which instructed them to “implement a plan to achieve the government’s objectives for the deployment of smart electricity meters.”
No cost-benefit study was considered and Minister Duncan’s directive to the OEB simply had to be “formalized” before the media picked up on the government’s manipulation of the electricity sector without going through the legislature or a hearing before a legislative committee! With a single signature Duncan committed Ontario’s ratepayers to pick up a bill for at least $2 billion!
Several years after that 2005 Throne Speech and the Dwight Duncan directive, Tyler Hamilton (the “expert” commentator as noted by Alicia Johnston in e-mails recently released by the government and commented on by Tom Adams) wrote an article for the October 7, 2010 Toronto Star. The article was all about “smart meters” and the wonders they would perform for all of the ratepayers in Ontario. It contained quotes from an IBM “technology consultant” including this one: “ ‘Right now, Ontario is a world leader in the smart grid and smart meter systems,’ he explained. ‘Dozens of utilities around the world are watching what’s going on here. In a way, we have become a micro lab for the rest of the world.’ ”
Later on in the article Hamilton makes this comment: “With smart meters…we have a tool that helps us to at least manage our electricity bill and help offset electricity rate increases.”
Did Tyler Hamilton, the “expert” commentator, really understand what he was endorsing? I believe most ratepayers in the province have received absolutely no benefit from either “smart meters” or the “smart grid” –neither one has done nothing to improve the aging infrastructure in the Province or “help offset electricity rate increases.”
Germany, whom we copied on the FIT and MicroFIT programs apparently didn’t see it with the clarity of Tyler Hamilton or that IBM technology consultant.
Mr. McGuinty is now at Harvard and presumably living in Massachusetts where the average cost of power is about half of what I am being charged. I wonder if he and former Minister Duncan now appreciate the “green” mess they created.
Worse, power utilities around the world must now be laughing up their sleeve at the wasted money Ontario’s ratepayers are forced to absorb. The “microlab” referenced by the IBM technology consultant has turned out instead to be an incinerator for our hard earned dollars!
Parker Gallant,
September 7, 2013
Next time, we will look at the “smart grid”
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent policies of Wind Concerns Ontario.
Coming soon to YOUR electricity bill
The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) is responsible for setting Ontario’s time-of use (TOU) and regulated price plan (RPP) electricity rates, and it does this twice annually, in April and October. The announcements are made slightly in advance of the effective dates of May 1st and November 1st and reflect what the OEB anticipates will occur in the upcoming six months. The reset rates are based on what the OEB feels will be required to pay the generators over that period of time.
The OEB preface their announcement by saying that “the increase will add [insert amount] to the average ratepayer’s bill per month or [insert percentage] of the total monthly bill.” They never specify that it is only the cost of electricity and that other items on your bill will/or may have already gone up! Their last announcement on TOU and RPP rates indicated an increase of 2.9% for the May 1, 2013 bills but it was actually an annual increase of 11% for many residential consumers.
The upcoming announcement in late October will accordingly reflect an adjustment to what has actually occurred (during the six months from May 1st to October 31st) and what is anticipated in the next six months.
Based on the first three months (May through July 2013) of the current period, Ontario’s ratepayers should expect another significant increase. Data from the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) indicates this period has seen a drop in Ontario’s demand of 4.7% or 1.7 terawatts (TWh) which is equal to 1.7 billion kilowatts (kWh). In any sane industry, a drop in demand normally signals the providers that the product/service needs a price reduction, or suppliers to exit the market, but the electricity sector is not ruled by “sane” individuals. It is a instead a centrally mismanaged industry run by the McGuinty/Wynne Liberal government with support from the NDP.
The cost of electricity to Ontario’s ratepayers consists of: the Hourly Ontario Electricity Price (HOEP) plus the Global Adjustment (GA). While the former reflects a trading market for electricity, functionally only the profitability of the “unregulated” hydro production from provincially owned Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is affected by the HOEP.
The GA on the other hand is loaded with costs that bear no relevance to the generation of electricity-items like the cost of picking up your neighbour’s old fridge, the monies handed out to gain aboriginal involvement in “wind” and “solar” production (referred to as “price adders”), the costs of the “conservation” initiatives, the costs of paying for the non-production of electricity generation from gas, and nuclear, plants, the costs of erecting meteorological stations at wind turbine developments so ratepayers can pay the developers for not producing power. And of course, there is the cost of supporting wind and solar production when it actually produces power at prices that are well above market, and five to six times what we sell that power for to our neighbours in New York, Michigan, Quebec, etc.
(NB: Not included in the GA is the cost of erecting and connecting transmission lines, adding transformers, etc. for the wind and solar generators. Those costs reflect themselves in the “delivery” line of your bills and they too keep increasing to pay for the billions that Hydro One has spent, and will continue to spend as more of these go into commercial operation.)
While the market value (at HOEP) increased nominally from the three comparative months in 2012 to 2013, the GA increased by over $400 million—a 26% rise. With demand also down, the per-unit impact should be ~32%, or 1.4 cents per kilowatt-hour (twice the debt retirement charge). The $135 million per month increase in the GA, if extended for a full year, will add almost $1.6 billion annually to the GA pot and would almost equal three “gas plant scandals” each year for the next 20 years.
The other factor playing into the continuing rise in our electricity bills is the unalterable fact that the $135 million per month increase only reflects about one-third of what the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) has already contracted for in respect to wind and solar generation. According to the OPA, wind power in commercial operation as of March 31, 2013 was 2,059 MW, representing 36% of the contracted supply of 5,797 MW and 764 MW of solar represented 38% of the 1,996 MW contracted for.
Despite the fact that only about one-third of contracted wind and solar are in commercial operation they are already driving up the costs of electricity. Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) data shows that over the three-month period in 2013, wind produced 2.5% of Ontario’s total generation. At a price of $135 per megawatt hour wind production would be directly responsible for approximately 5.4% of the total GA. There is no comparable data from the IESO for solar, which can be seen as a huge shortcoming as our estimates range from solar producing from 0.7%-1.2% of all generation, but contributing from 6.5-11% of the global adjustment. Wind and solar generation together likely produced 3-4% of generation and directly accounted for around 15% of the global adjustment charges.
Indirectly the cost is higher: natural gas-fired plants have been contracted, guaranteeing Net Revenue Requirement (NRR) that make them profitable whether or not they produce power (the hope being they are used only for backing up low/no carbon emission sources).
The conclusion one can draw from the foregoing is that renewable energy (wind and solar) producing intermittent electricity (80% of the time when we don’t need it) costs ratepayers four times what it costs for conventional sources and when those remaining contracted 3,739 MW of wind and 1,232 of solar are in commercial operation, we should expect they will produce (on average but 80% of the time when it’s not needed) 10.5% of Ontario’s demand and represent about 40% of the GA costs. Those GA costs have climbed to the point where they now represent in excess of 65% of our electricity costs.
At that point it will be interesting to see how the OEB spins the increases that will be trotted out in the spring and fall announcements. For starters we should expect an interesting announcement in October as it is now appearing they missed the mark with their 2.9% in April 2013 (actual 11%) by a pretty wide margin if the following three months are similar to those just past. The OEB announcement will need to include the 20% plus they missed to simply catch up and whatever is expected in the six months, November 1, 2013 to April 30, 2014, when a further chunk of those wind and solar contracts will suddenly impact our electricity prices.
Ontario’s ratepayers should expect to be dazzled by the “spin”!
Scott Luft and Parker Gallant
August 22, 2013
The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent Wind Concerns Ontario.
Not a Willing Host representatives meet today in Ottawa
Coalition of ‘Unwilling Host’ Municipalities
Press Advisory August 20, 2013, OTTAWA
Representatives of the 62 municipalities that have declared themselves ‘unwilling hosts’ to wind turbines are coming together during the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) meeting currently underway in Ottawa to discuss ways to bring their concerns more forcefully to the government.
According to Kevin Marriott, Mayor of Enniskillen, ‘the government has not addressed the concerns of these communities’. In the Throne Speech and other statements by the Premier, they talked about wanting to locate projects in willing host communities, but there has been no substance to these announcements in terms of municipal input will be incorporated in the process. Meanwhile, the government continues to approve wind turbine projects without consideration of municipal concerns according to Marriott.
Some municipal officials represented at AMO have already experienced the impact of wind turbines on their communities. Complaints start once when they become operational with people being forced from their homes by noise and low frequency noise vibrations. These municipalities are looking for the MOE to actually start enforcing the noise standards that they have set and to follow up on the health complaints being filed with Medical Officers of Health.
Mayor April Jeffs of Wainfleet wants the government to start applying learning from these early projects and apply increased set-backs from people’s homes to new projects before they are approved. Wainfleet adopted a 2 kilometer set-back by-law that was challenged in court by the wind developer.
Municipalities are looking for the government to return real local planning authority for wind turbines to local municipalities. These powers were taken away by the Green Energy Act. Municipalities are better placed that a Queen’s Park civil servants to identify local issues that need to be addressed in reviewing wind turbine projects. They also have processes in place to review and approve other complex or controversial projects building projects that take place in their municipalities.
The municipal representatives at AMO will be meeting Tuesday August 20 at 4:30 pm. in the Governor-General 1 on the 4th floor of the Westin Hotel in Ottawa.
For further details contact, Kevin Marriott at 519-383-9170 or April Jeffs at 905-658-7890.
400+ gather in Sarnia: wind power not sustainable
August 1, 2013–More than 400 people gathered at the Imperial Theatre in Sarnia last night to hear a panel of guests discuss the effects of the Green Energy Act on Ontario, and specifically, the damage done by the Ontario government’s rush to expensive, unreliable wind power.
Organized by We’re Against Industrial Turbines of Plymptom-Wyoming (a WCO member group), the meeting featured wind power activist and former turbine neighbour Barbara Ashbee-Lormand, WCO VP Parker Gallant, University of Guelph economics professor Ross McKitrick, SWEAR’s Dave Hemingway, and Middlesex-Lambton resident Esther Wrightman. Wrightman is being sued by U.S. energy giant NextEra for posting a video of staff removing a tree and Bald Eagle nest, and for repeating on her blogsite the community’s nickname of “NextTerror.”
Parker Gallant told the crowd what’s really in their electricity bills, and how much Ontario’s rush to renewables–mostly wind–is costing everyone. Nuclear is responsible for 56% of the power we use and costs about 45% of Ontario’s costs, while wind produces just 3% (actually less) and costs 6%. Electricity bills have gone up dramatically, Gallant said, and the trend will continue as more solar and wind come online.
Economics prof Ross McKitrick told the audience that Ontario’s Green Energy Act has cost 10 times what it would have cost to retrofit buildings and homes.
Esther Wrightman recounted her legal battle with NextEra; at one point, she was having trouble adjusting the microphone and quipped, “I’m more comfortable with a bullhorn.”
A story prior to the event appeared in the Sarnia Observer: http://www.theobserver.ca/2013/07/31/liberal-candidate-wants-municipalities-to-have-green-energy-veto
For more information, contact us at windconcerns@gmail.com
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A couple of Points
Among the myriad economic perversions created by Ontario’s Green Energy Act one of the more intriguing, and possibly treacherous, is the creation of a financial marketplace for municipal favours. The McGuinty government was noisily criticized when it laid low government regulations and environmental protections that enable intermittent electricity generators to move their wind and solar developments through the queue quicker and easier under the Green Energy Act.
Among its loudest critics were municipalities that had been cut out of the decisionmaking process. Neutered, municipal leaders could only grumble as the trucks laden with intermittent energy components manufactured offshore, rumbled into their communities, across their roads and bridges to be erected anywhere the developer pleased. Even endangered species are being forced relocate, or die, to make way for the industrialization of Ontario rural landscape in the name of “green” energy.”
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