Ontario to spend 7 Billion on Climate Plan

[SmartElectric]

They may require an EV and a separate meter for the charging station.

The cost would be laughable for the 1.5 kW charger I use with my Smart ED every night, about 5 kWh of total electricity draw, or about $0.70 at nightly rates. Just writing this down blows my mind, this little car is cheap to drive!

As for our Tesla, it uses more electricity in vampire draw than my Smart ED does with my 40 km daily commute, so again, about $1.00 per day.

Side note : My Smart ED has zero energy usage sitting idle. It's not even measurable.


All this to say, free electricity is of very little value compared to the >> $10000 in incentive money!

 

[LazMan]

I don't understand. Why all this money for a miscellaneous group of programs which may or may not be effective. Why not a revenue neutral significant carbon tax and let the market find the most efficient way decarbonize?

 

[sandpiper]

Not factual. The vast majority of the increase in hydro rates have nothing to do with the newly added renewable electricity, which is only a small fraction of the total production, about 15% in 2015. The increases align with the overhaul of decades old infrastructure and build out of the gas plants which was required in order to bring down the gigawatts of Nuclear for refurbishment.

The latest 400+MW sale of new power production had wind cheaper than any new power source, 8c/kWh, and solar was only a bit more expensive than that. Wind power in Ontario is a fantastic match to the excellent hydro resources we have available, and the 7GW of new gas power we needed to build to replace coal and cover for large scale nuclear outages.

A few years ago I got the inside track, from an engineer working on one of the projects, on how the FIT programs work for some of the medium scale wind programs in SW Ontario were structured. At that time they had some long term agreements in place on something over 30c/kwhr. He was quite clear that there was zero economic case for these units, even if you didn't consider the additional distribution infrastructure required and the fact that you had to build other (gas) infrastructure that would be available in low wind conditions. He was also clear that, but for the taxpayer support, none would ever be built.

I don't have the current numbers for the larger FIT projects, but at present, certainly the smaller fit projects offer rates way above 8c/kwhr. There is zero economic case for any of them. And it should be noted that these FIT rates are quite a bit down from the earlier ones that we are presently paying for and will continue to.

FIT Price Schedule | Feed-in Tariff Program - Independent Electricity System Operator

For reference here is a report comparing power rates across NA. Unsurprisingly, we pay the highest rates on the continent.

http://www.hydroquebec.com/publications/en/docs/comparaison-electricity-prices/comp_2014_en.pdf

And of course there is the auditors report on the giant f-up that is the Liberal legacy in relation to planning our power grid. They've let partisan interests and ideology massively overrun what should be a technical & economic planning process and our economy will be paying the price for a very very long time.

http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en15/3.05en15.pdf

I'm all in favour of green power. But what we're doing here in Ontario, stumbling around drunkenly from one politically driven scheme, crisis, scandal, etc... to another has to come to an end.

 

[Breezy]

For reference here is a report comparing power rates across NA. Unsurprisingly, we pay the highest rates on the continent.

http://www.hydroquebec.com/publications/en/docs/comparaison-electricity-prices/comp_2014_en.pdf

I keep hearing that we pay the highest rates in North America, but I haven't seen a reference that supports it. That report just shows that Ontario customers pay among the highest rates in Canada.

 

[Duckjybe]

I strongly urge the Ontario government to eliminate the Electric Vehicle Incentive Program (EVIP) MSRP cap on long range BEV's. See my graph of the inequity of the current program and its carbon emissions injustice. There is too little incentive for the lowest emitting, most practical, long range BEV's - namely Tesla vehicles. There is too much incentive for small battery plug-in hybrids.

View media item 115029

 

[Duckjybe]

Here is the twitter link to my post above. Please share with Ontario government officals.

EVIP Incentive on Twitter

 

[wayner]

I keep hearing that we pay the highest rates in North America, but I haven't seen a reference that supports it. That report just shows that Ontario customers pay among the highest rates in Canada.

True, that report shows higher rates in many major US cities and that was done when the C$ was 0.90. Doing that today when we are at $0.78 would make Ontario look even less, even if rates in Ontario have risen more than those in other places.

You can find US electricity on a state by state basis here but it isn't clear if that includes all taxes, surcharges, etc. You can see that many places, such as the Northeast and California, are above $0.15/kWh which makes them higher even before considering the exchange rate.

 

[Breezy]

Here is the twitter link to my post above. Please share with Ontario government officals.

EVIP Incentive on Twitter

Looks interesting. Would you be able to list the assumptions used to make this graph?

 

[Phillip L]

What about the media reports that Ontario often has excess electricity that it has to pay American utilizes to take off our hands? If true would make sense to use it here for ev's.

 

[wayner]

Actually we do export most of the time and you can see it in pretty much real-time here. Gridwatch

Currently we are only exporting (net) 421MW which is pretty small given the current generation of 14,643MW. Ontario is exporting to Michigan, Minnesota and NY and importing from Quebec and Manitoba.

 

[Duckjybe]

Looks interesting. Would you be able to list the assumptions used to make this graph?

Here is the spreadsheet. Let me know if you see any errors. All the fuel economy numbers are from Natural Resources Canada which are from U.S. EPA www.fueleconomy.gov.

 

[Jaff]

If that is the case then I suspect that the added cost to the consumer of buying and installing a separate meter, being an upfront capital cost, would probably negate much of the benefits from the free electricity.

Won't matter to us Phillip...Tesla's will probably be disqualified from the free (night time) power thang...

 

[wayner]

I already have two meters - one for consumption and one for my microFIT generation. I really don't need a third especially if I have to eat the cost of hooking it up. And how are they going to police whether the consumption is going to your car or not?

Just give EV owners something like 20 kWh/day of free electricity in off-peak periods, or an Ontario Tax Credit for an equivalent amount (which is about $1100/year). Much easier.

 

[Jaff]

Which is why I outlined my doubt that this will apply to premium cars.
Fortunately, you and I have already cashed our $8500 rebates (maybe a few times for you) from the previous program, and the Tesla 3 is only a year or two away, so in the meantime, a roll out of CHAdeMO charging stations for us Tesla owners is at least something we can cheer (at least those with adaptors).

Sorry, I don't see it that way. I see zero reason to apply social equity rules to what should be exclusively environmental policies.

For the record, because I drive a long range BEV, I doubt I'll use any / many of the CHAdeMo charging stations in Ontario.

 

[SmartElectric]

I don't have the current numbers for the larger FIT projects, but at present, certainly the smaller fit projects offer rates way above 8c/kwhr. There is zero economic case for any of them. And it should be noted that these FIT rates are quite a bit down from the earlier ones that we are presently paying for and will continue to

Ontario offers contracts to 11 firms to build new renewable energy projects

Unlike in the past, when developers of large projects received government-set prices for the power they generated, the new competitive system saw contracts go to those promising to sell power for the lowest price ...
The prices in these contracts are far below what the province paid for power under the old Feed-In Tariff (FIT) program...
The cost of wind and solar technology has fallen...
On average, the new wind power projects will get 8.59 cents a kilowatt hour of electricity generated...
Solar power costs have fallen even further. The solar projects chosen by IESO will get an average of 15.67 cents a kwh for their electrical production...
Critics of nuclear power pointed out Thursday that pricing on the wind projects is very close to the projected electricity costs from rebuilt nuclear plants in Ontario.

I agree completely with the Liberal government bashing, and the conservatives deserve every bit as much, but let's ignore politics.

The latest wind energy prices are cheaper than refurb nuclear, presuming nukes don't blow past price estimates (Ya right!)

 

[SmartElectric]

because I drive a long range BEV, I doubt I'll use any / many of the CHAdeMo charging stations in Ontario.

There were a few trips I didn't take in the Tesla this past winter due to lack of charging. More than 350 km in -20C takes nerves in an S85! A DC charger in Milton would have made a few trips much more convenient. We waited 2 hours in Milton to get a buffer to get home on a trip this past winter, would only have been 15 minutes at a CHAdeMO charger...

 

[SmartElectric]

Actually we do export most of the time and you can see it in pretty much real-time here. Gridwatch

Here is my blog with a chart from IESO showing the nuke plants boiling water because of low overnight demand:
Smart Electric Drive: Choose one : boil steam or recharge a million electric cars

If 1 million cars were recharging simultaneously using 1.5KW, this load would be less than the peak air conditioning load in the summer, and again, the load would be in the middle of the night, when electricity use is historically the lowest.

Very often in Ontario, the Bruce Nuclear facility "vents steam" using a steam bypass capability that effectively boils water to avoid producing power to the turbines, so as to reduce the amount of electricity generated, when the baseload supply exceeds the overnight low demand trough. Bruce power is paid to waste energy producing unused steam, as it provides flexibility to the grid.

 

[SmartElectric]

There is too little incentive for the lowest emitting, most practical, long range BEV's - namely Tesla vehicles. There is too much incentive for small battery plug-in hybrids

It isn't only long range BEV's which are affected. The fact the Audi e-tron gets a larger incentive than pure electric cars like my awesome little Smart ED makes no sense either, as the Smart ED makes a 80 km all-electric-range (AER) commute possible, and the Audi is lucky to get 25 km AER in winter.

 

[Phillip L]

Here is my blog with a chart from IESO showing the nuke plants boiling water because of low overnight demand:
Smart Electric Drive: Choose one : boil steam or recharge a million electric cars

Exactly. Either blow it off in steam, pay to give it away or use it to power ev's. This could make sense. And if it is most commonly at certain times in the middle of the night, those hours can easily be designated the free hours for charging and the Ev owners can program that for their cars easier than almost any other electric appliance out there.

 

[wayner]

Or use it to charge batteries at night and discharge them during the day. Assuming free electricity at night and peak rates of $0.2 and offpeak of $0.15 you could save about $432 per year with a 6.4kWh Tesla Powerwall by charging it every night and discharging it during the day. They cost US$3000 or C$4000. So that is a 9.5 year payback - but then you also have to add in an inverter which is another US$3000. Maybe you could reuse your PV inverter, if you had one?