Comment
Unmanageable
Where does the money go? Global News has presented a series of stories over the past few weeks painting a troubling picture of rural Ontario residents struggling to pay soaring electricity bills. In a particularly telling interview, Ontario’s new Energy Minister, Glenn Thibault, was forced to admit he didn’t know how many residents have had their electricity disconnected because they couldn’t pay— nor was he aware if anyone in his department was keeping track of this information.
Thibault’s suggestion? Residents should conserve electricity. Besides, his government has a new support program designed specifically to help low-income Ontario residents pay their electricity bills. Relief of sorts perhaps, but more along the lines of putting one’s thumb in a dike, rather than addressing the bigger issue.
All it really does is transfer these costs to the taxpayer.
So where is the money going? Many millions, indeed billions, of dollars are being extracted from customers and taxpayers to fund rising electricity costs. Is it paying for research and development into electricity storage so that perhaps one day, intermittent generating sources (i.e. wind and solar) might serve a useful purpose? Is it being used to offset the hardship faced by low income Ontarians? Is it funding Ontario infrastructure development or green transit plans? No, no and no.
Maybe it is funding a network of charging stations across the province, including one planned for the King Street parking lot in Picton? No. Perhaps it is helping to pay the $14,000 subsidy Ontario pays purchasers of electric cars? No.
As it turns out, much of this money is going into the pockets of a few developers, investors, pension funds and corporations. It’s called profit—and a handful of companies are profiting handsomely from your electricity bills.
Scott Luft has been poring over the mounds of data produced by the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) and other sources for the past six years. Luft’s research and analysis, compiled on his website coldair.luftonline.net, is an important resource for anyone interested in understanding what has gone so terribly wrong with Ontario’s electricity market. Luft has methodically revealed, and laid bare, the destructive politically driven management of Ontario’s electricity system and shows why residents will be paying for these decisions for decades to come.
According to Luft’s analysis, Ontario electricity customers have subsidized wind and solar energy producers by $6.4 billion over the past decade. Worse, the rate of subsidization is climbing rapidly. We are on track in Ontario to subsidize wind and solar producers by more than $2 billion in 2016 alone.
This is money going directly from consumers into the bank accounts of producers. This doesn’t include the many millions of dollars Ontario spends, or forgoes, each year offloading excess electricity to New York or Michigan from intermittent wind and solar generators it can’t control. Or the amount we pay smelters and mineral processors to spare them the high cost of Ontario electricity.
How did we get here?
Through the 1990s, Ontario dabbled in renewable energy but couldn’t persuade investors and the capital markets to participate with them. They increased incentives and tax breaks but investors stayed on the sidelines.
Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals came to power in 2003 promising to close Ontario’s coal-fired generating facilities and replace this capacity with electricity generated from renewable sources, including wind and solar. While he successfully closed coal-fired plants, it was gas and nuclear-powered generation, not wind and solar, that filled the gap. (Luft’s charting, based on IESO data, illustrates this clearly).
Still, investors remained stubbornly on the sidelines. So McGuinty doubled down and doubled down again. Eventually, he would agree to pay wind and solar producers as much as 25 times the market price for electricity for up to 20 years—if it appeared to be green. That did the trick. Now, long queues form seeking to join the gravy train each time the wicket opens for the province to buy more power.
Despite a decade of rapid and ill-planned expansion of industrial wind and solar facilities across the province, these generators produce a paltry portion of the province’s electricity—at an extraordinarily high cost. They did, however, provide one important advantage for McGuinty and, later, Kathleen Wynne. The massive turbines and acres of solar panels have proved to be helpful political emblems signalling to urban voters their government is green.
It has won this praise at a very high cost. Sadly, it is Ontario’s rural poor who are paying it.
In the interest of journalistic balance, do Ontario’s other political parties have constructive, rational, economical, constructible, peer-reviewed alternatives to the present insanity, or is that the sound of … crickets?
Good article. Thank you. Mr.Thibault’s comment to conserve is the same vacuous talking point all the Liberal energy ministers have been trained to repeat. It ignores the fact almost all our generation is now contracted ahead, so driving down consumption in On. only drives the unit price and at a loss exports up. The best you can do is conserve more and dump greater share onto your neighbour. Is it ideology run amuck or the latter stages of a corporate sell of a once great public asset?
One of the terminal drags on our economy is the fact Ontario now bleeds red to either off-shore corporations or cross border interests whenever the wind blows or the sun shines. To think this is replacing one of the worlds best and cleanest public owned electricity systems. Adam Beck must be spinning in his grave faster than Samsung and NextEras wind turbines.
Ironically coal power stations now have chimney scrubbers as they are call to reduce
emissions, at a much LESSER COST !! Some times Canadians are put in a very bad position by our Nortorious Politicains .
When is someone with proper electrical knowledge going to step in an fix this Horrible mess. And make Ontario Hydro a Fiscally sound again, and reasonably affordable !!
ps Hydro means water , Hence the natural source of electrical power. ie Dams and Turbines,,,,,, unlimited natural power in Ontario Canada.
One would think Ontario is a DESERT, , , WITH THE CURRENT ELECTRICAL EXPENSE ! ! !
You wrote “much of this money is going into the pockets of a few developers, investors, pension funds and corporations.” Actually, there is one beneficiary you didn’t mention, the government or more precisely the Liberal Party . . . in form of political donations which helps those associated with the developers, investors, pension funds and corporations make the profits they do and keeps the Party in power. All of them are having a great party [pun intended] on the back of the rural taxpayer; who see little of the government largeness.
We all try to be good lil green energy savers and all that happened is the hydro companies have been sucking all the “green” from our bank accounts! If any business was run the way the gov’t runs the business of hydro, their doors would be closed in a nano second because no smart person would buy their dollar gouging product. Sadly we are held hostage by which ever gov’t is in power, because we all need access to electricity. If someone makes a peddle type home generator I’d be first in line to buy it and peddle my butt off to power my appliances and lights if it meant getting rid of Hydro One!!
Thibault didn’t know so many people had their hydro disconnected , ya right he didn’t know. He thinks we should conserve, well you stunned twit if rural Ontario conserved anymore we’d have to have our hydro disconnected all together. He blames rural Ontario Hydro one customers when he should be blaming his Liberal buddies because of their totally mismanaged green energy policies. Who in their mind thinks having $600.00 – $1000.00 per month hydro bills is ok, oh ya the Liberals and hydro One. What’s it going to take before the Liberals and Hydro One to get off their arses and do something about it, people freezing to death or dying because their medical equipment doesn’t work because they had their hydro disconnected. Shame on them.
Mr. Thibault’s suggestion that rural residents should conserve electricity is ludicrous. For example, I have been trying to leave my house “dark” during the day meaning no laundry and such during peak hours. How was I rewarded for my efforts? An increase in rates because Hydro wasn’t selling as much electricity. The whole system needs to be re- thought and overhauled.