Ontario Hydro Continues to Waste $$$

[dweese]

 

As I read it, they are talking about the building of the infrastructure. If there was a race to connect a solar panel or a hydro dam, then the solar panel would be first in line to connect to the grid for the first time. However, if both already have physical connections, it does not suggest, as I interpret it, that the solar panel gets to produce power before the hydro dam.

 

 

 

 

See, this suggests to me that the green energy solutions do not have priority at all, in terms of power generation. That is contrary to what has been told in previous posts.

 

I had a look at the green energy policies in a few other countries and they explicitly specify both the priority connection, and the priority feed-in. The latter seems to be missing in Ontario's version, so this is where my confusion lies.

 

 

You have to understand how the grid works, to understand the act a little more I guess. The Green systems that get priority are for the most part fully automated. So because of this they self adjust to grid load, and can but shut down remotely by the IESO should they need too.  

 

Bigger damns and even the gas plants, have a local or remote operations centre which is not controlled by the IESO, but by the owner of the generating station. I'm not sure if its don't by telephone call or electronic message, but if grid power needs to be adjusted, the IESO contacts that company's local control centre and they adjust the power.

 

Or at least that's how, I have come to understand it, based on what I have read over my years in the electrical industry.  

 

For Skidooer, here's one of many articles about dumping power.

 

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/07/20/ontarios-power-trip-power-dumping/

 

and another from 2013

 

http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/01/20/ontario_paid_1_billion_to_dump_excess_electricity_in_2013_ndp.html

 

 

Now that all said, it will be interesting to see the 2014 numbers for power exports. With Coal totally shutdown at the end of last year, taking about 5000mw of generation out of the mix. That should bring our export numbers down. Which it must have, because on this cooler than normal summer, I don't remember reading much about exported power, and it wasn't a big thing during the June election.   

[ArcticCrusher]

Its pretty sad when people are installing renewable energy not for their own use, but just to sell it back to hydro and get a subsidy.  

[skidooer]

You have to understand how the grid works, to understand the act a little more I guess. The Green systems that get priority are for the most part fully automated. So because of this they self adjust to grid load, and can but shut down remotely by the IESO should they need too.  

 

 

If I understand correctly, you're saying that there actually is nothing in the act about prioritizing those sources, but it may play out that way in the real world due to real-world constraints?

 

 

For Skidooer, here's one of many articles about dumping power.

 

Thanks. So, why do the exports jump considerably, to the highest level shown, in 2008 according to your first link?

 

 

The Green Energy Act came into effect in the year 2009. In fact, exports started to decline when wind/solar generators started being built under it, according to that source. Something doesn't quite add up with what was suggested earlier.

[02Sled]

Hydro seldom seems to make sense. There was a program where during peak times, i.e. middle of summer on hot days they were looking for businesses to shed load with 24 hours notice. With two 1600 kVa diesel generators that we needed to exercise monthly to ensure their availability we contacted hydro and said we could take our entire building including the data centre offline at any point in time. Just let us know when and we will consider that part of our monthly exercise.

 

Thye said, sorry... that's not what we want. We want you to actually turn things off. I said sorry but I can't shut our systems and our business down. It's the same effect to utility power consumption if we open the main breakers. We draw zero power from the utility which is your goal isn't it? As far as you are concered we shut down the building with about 1.2 megawatt of load falling off the grid. Thye still said they weren't interested.

[dweese]

If I understand correctly, you're saying that there actually is nothing in the act about prioritizing those sources, but it may play out that way in the real world due to real-world constraints?

Maybe..Haven't going that deep in to it.. but that is the way things work out.

Or did.. There was talk about changing the Act for new builds to switch to a more equal system where everyone gets thier far share, but don't know if that happened or not.