I'll chip in...a partial sell off of Hydro One will make the sunshine list much shorter and will lead to a shorter, less annoying, annual discussion about the list....I am all for it on that basis alone
As we have veered into Ontario power issues...
...as a spinoff topic of Hydro One funding electric transportation in Ontario...
About expensive Ontario power --
I hope whoever gets elected to Federal (red, blue, orange) agree to provide a
properly efficient electric-generation incentive program for manufacturers moving into Canada to set up shop. We need proper counter-balances to the high electricity rates repelling manufacturers from Ontario. People like Google and Apple have set up their power generation because of incentives given to them, and employment has grown in these areas as a result. Let's carefully copy some useful elements of this, to try and bring some industry back to Ontario despite high electricity rates. Reduce red tape for companies that want to make their own electricity. Make it easy. Provide reasonable incentives (that pays back quickly for both them & taxpayers). Etc.
I am VERY glad we got rid of our final coal electricity plant in 2014. No more coal in Ontario! No more Nanticoke smog blown at us either. But the cost has bee somewhat unacceptable, including inefficient deployment of wind. Wind is good in a diversified power generation mix, but the way we have deployed without enough peaking power (see:
gas plant scandal) and transmission infrastructure is iffy (see:
forced to pay a jurisdiction to take our surplus wind power at times when we couldn't transmit needed surplus wind power to where it is profitable).
Hopefully the new transmission infrastructure that's going to be installed, will prevent us from being forced to shut down nuclear during wind surplus, and paying other jurisdictions to take surplus power away from us.
A good site is
www.windontario.ca
They appear very anti-wind.
But they are not. Scroll to the bottom:
For the record:
This site is not anti-wind energy, but attempts to convey its path of implementation in Ontario.
Wind energy has seen success in areas such Nevada, Texas, Kansas, Arizona, Wyoming, Alberta, and Quebec to name a few.
Their success is the result of:
Comprehensive studies and business plans;
Turbines built where wind speeds are high;
Turbines built away from populated areas;
Promotion of competition to get the cheapest rates.
Ontario did none of this.
quoted from www.windontario.ca
We kind of rushed with the first surge of wind power. Amongst zillions of factors (e.g. Ontario Hydro nuclear debt), it helped raise our electricity rates.
Now we need to fix the inefficiencies so that wind power is worth it.
Although I initially barf at Hydro One privatization, I concede that privatization of Hydro One MAY actually undo some of these above inefficiencies. When accountable to stockholders, wind turbines will be built more profitably (areas of higher wind speeds, better studies, better business plans) and efficiently. Government regulation will be needed to improve things like forcing wind companies to remove old discontinued wind turbines (at end of life), to things like location of new builds and better friendly community involvement including possibly compensating all adjacent rural homes within X meters of a turbine (noise/flicker zone). Future wind/solar farm contracts should not be unusually sweetheart like long-term electricity generation at an artificially profitable 20-to-30-cents (or similar league), even if it did help our clean industry launch like a rocket and create a renewable base. There are better ways now that we're this far...
Other than the rush we did to build wind and solar farms in Ontario (at all costs) to quickly rid of our coal -- we created recent new inefficiencies in our electrical grid. (shutting down nuclear during surplus wind, and paying others to take unwanted surplus electricity sometimes). Otherwise, I normally do like wind energy when properly planned.
The Hydro One privatization people, and the governments, must study www.windontario.ca and apply lessons going forward to lower the cost of our electricity while continuing to deploy clean/cleaner power. We now need to 'optimize' what we already have.
