Ontario urged to discount clean power to businesses

TORONTO• Cheap exports of surplus nuclear, solar, wind and hydro power could have cost Ontario as much as $1.25 billion over 21 months, according to a new study released Tuesday by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE).

Depending on what the situation calls for, Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, exports and imports electricity to and from neighbouring places such as Manitoba, Michigan, New York and Quebec, with exports outnumbering imports by roughly threeto- one in 2016 and the first nine months of 2017, the study showed.

But OSPE, a non-partisan group, said the province’s exports of “clean” electricity over those 21 months — generated from power plants and sources that give off nearly zero greenhouse gas emissions — were worth plenty more than what Ontario received.

The electricity cost the province’s power system a combined $ 1.885 billion to produce, the study suggested, enough energy to power more than two million homes for an entire year. In return, somewhere in the range of $ 637 million and $ 1.15 billion in revenue was earned for the power, leading to a loss of between $ 732 million and $ 1.25 billion.

Rather than just taking those losses, the engineers say Ontario should make its surplus clean electricity available to businesses at a discount of less than two cents per kilowatt hour, allowing them to ditch fossil fuels they use for space heating or other forms of thermal storage, as well as to power electric vehicles and produce cleaner-burning hydrogen.

“Instead of exporting surplus clean electricity, our province has a special opportunity to use this energy as an economic driver — stimulating all- new waves of made- in- Ontario innovation and growth,” says the report. “Failure to address these concerns encourages the migration of investment, industry, and jobs to neighbouring jurisdictions — including significant engineering positions and talent.”

OSPE said its findings are based on an analysis of publicly available data put out by the agencies that run and regulate Ontario’s power grid and electricity industry. The report notes that export revenue can help Ontario reduce losses, but that the province may be able to find a better use for the power.

“When we export clean electricity at low prices Ontario consumers and businesses are effectively paying for electrical capacity that contributes to the clean up of the energy systems of other jurisdictions,” the report says.

This news is likely to grate on Ontarians, who have paid some of North America’s highest electricity prices in recent years. The province’s Liberal government enacted a plan earlier this year that cut the household power bill by an average of 25 per cent, a direction that will cost billions of dollars in debt.