News   Feb 27, 2026
Ranking Eglinton Line 5's Stations
 1.6K     2 
News   Feb 27, 2026
Cladding Progresses as Cielo Condos Reaches Upper Floors
 643     0 
News   Feb 27, 2026
State of Construction: Process Relies on Planning, Timing, Precision
 682     0 

Electricity consumption: Ontario vs. California

H

Hipster Duck

Senior Member
Member Bio
Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
3,558
Reaction score
12
I was surprised by this graph from the Ontario Power Authority's Conservation Bureau.

Storage.asp


While it's encouraging to see that Ontario's per capita electricity consumption has declined since 1990, we still use almost twice as much electricity as the average Californian. I'm somewhat amazed by this because Californians live a North American lifestyle with a much greater need for air conditioning than Ontarians and have more than their share of energy-intensive industries. What are they doing down there?
 
Also interesting that Sweden is so high. Sweden and Finland are actually a pretty close comparison geographically, socially and economically to Ontario.
 
Lighting, winter. Lighting in winter. Transmission distances. These might play a role.

California has been recognized as a leader in energy efficiency.
 
The steel industry uses a lot of electricity here in Ontario. IIRC Dofasco is the single biggest user in Ontario.
 
California has its share of heavy industry, including steel mills, that would suck up a lot of electricity and I don't think transmission distances in Ontario are all that great (Pickering, Darlington and Niagara all being in or within 100 km of the GTA). I can't really see winter lighting contributing that much to our load, especially since they [Californians] lose an equivalent amount of summer daylight by being further south.

It's easy to pick Japan or a European country as a model of energy frugality, but that would involve a long and arduous downscaling of North American lifestyles. Before we embark on that project, I think it's pretty eye opening when a more affluent US state that has just as many 3,000 square foot monster houses and where you need to crank the A/C for three quarters of the year gets by on half the electricity. I think there is a lesson in energy conservation to be learned here before we commit billions of dollars into additional nuclear power plants or even alternative energy projects like wind.
 
Ontario would go a long way towards reducing its electricity consumption merely by matching California's appliance efficiency regulations (which wouldn't be too onerous--any major manufacturer makes models for that market).

I bet California's substantially higher rates also play a role in conservation.
 
The climate must play a big factor as well. Note how Sweden is also high up there, despite probably being more enlightened than us in terms of transportation, building construction and other things.

Think of it like this: in winter, it's -10C outside, and we crank the heat to make our interior spaces 20C. That's a 30C upwards change. A Californian cranking his AC in summer is only decreasing the temperature by 10C at most. Plus, cooling takes less energy than heating.
 
W. K. Lis said:
It helps having downtown Toronto air condition its tall buildings by using Deep Water Cooling, which uses less electricity. The chilly 4°C deep lake water is used to chill the closed loop air conditioning system of the downtown buildings, before using it as drinking water.
Click to expand...

It will be interesting to see just how far this system can be extended from the lake and still retain power savings. It is currently being extended to Queens Park. Can it reach Eglinton? How about the cluster of towers at Finch? It is a pressurized closed-loop system so pumping uphill should not change the cost.

Doesn't appear either the Skydome or CN Tower are on the client list yet.
 
The system is pretty much complete. It can add some new customers in its existing service area, but supposedly it would take major reconstruction to extend it much further.
 
The Deep Water Cooling unfortunately only uses the cold 4° water pumped in from the Island Water Treatment Plant to downtown Toronto. It would be nice to use it for other parts of Toronto to save on electricity, but it needs larger industrial, office, condo, and apartment buildings that are close to the lake water pumping or filtration stations, where the heat from the buildings can be transferring to get the water to a cool 12°.

This means that if there are several large buildings near the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant, R. L. Clark Water Treatment Plant, and the F. J. Horgan Water Treatment Plant, all on the Toronto lake shore, it could be expanded and save even more electricity usage. It would be impractical otherwise.
 
Hmm....we use almost 3 times as much as Ireland & the U.K..... I never realized that there was that much of a difference...
 
What's interesting is that countries like the UK have an extensive electric transportation network which we don't have.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top