Ontario Loses Big On Electricity Exports in January 2015

Here's a post by Parker Gallant about Ontario losing money on exports of electricity:

"In January Ontario exported 2,043,768 megawatts (MWh) and for an average price of $29.55 per/MWh while Ontario electricity customers picked up the additional costs of the Global Adjustment pot of $50.68 per MWh.

The sale of that surplus (enough to supply about 2.5 million Ontario homes with power for the whole month) represented 15.6% of Ontario’s total demand. It resulted $58.5 million in revenue but cost Ontario electricity ratepayers $164 million."

Generally January is usually a low Global Adjustment month for Ontario, as electricity demand is usually high (space heaters and the like I would assume due to the cold) and more closely matches supply (especially wind, although solar production is also very weak in January). I haven't been checking the Global Adjustment numbers lately, but I should start again. A month like March with high average wind and low demand could be especially bad.

Ontario Electricity: February 2014 Final Global Adjustment, March Initial Estimate

Ontario has continued its string of low global adjustment charges for electricity this winter. February's final global adjustment came in at a rather low of 1.33 cents per kilowatt hour. That was lower than the initial estimate of 2.23 cents, but slightly higher than January's 1.26 cents per kilowatt hour. That's a considerable decrease from last year's 4.81 cents.

Why so low? Probably because as in January it was really cold and people used more electricity, especially at night for supplemental heating (when the wind is blowing and wind turbine production is high). That combined with seasonally low production from expensive wind and solar producers produces a low global adjustment. It is a little strange that the February rate is so low compared to last year, however it has been significantly colder.

March's estimate is again really low in historical terms at 1.1 cents, especially compared to last year's 4.93 cents. Again March has been a lot colder than last year, so energy consumption should be up. April should be interesting as hopefully it will be considerably warmer with lower consumption and more production from solar should lead to a considerable increase in the global adjustment. Last April's was 5.86 cents.

Latest Global Adjustment Rates for Ontario Electricity

The Global Adjustment is an extra fee that Ontario electricity consumers pay that basically makes up the difference for the high rates that must be paid to wind farm power providers under contract and the wholesale price of power. That's a simplification, but there's more information here.

One of the interesting effects of the Global Adjustment is that it will be highest when the wind blows the most and demand is the least. The wind producers have to get paid and there is less cheaper power being used to lower the price. Here's the rates for the last nine months from the above site as of today:

January 4.25
Febuary 5.06
March 6.23
April 6.07
May 5.65
June 5.26
July 3.36
August 4.18
September 4.16

That's in cents per kilowatt hour. Note the March rate, a windy month without a lot of heat or air conditioning demand is close to double the July amount. So try to conserve power in March as you will end up paying more, even though perversely demand is low. HST is also applied to the Global Adjustment.

Also published at the above link is estimates for recent months. For October the estimate is 5.34 and 4.77 cents per kilowatt hour.

As more renewable solar and wind power comes online with guaranteed high rates per kilowatt hour, will the Global Adjustment go up? Good question. If overall demand trends down, then definitely, as less regularly priced power will be consumed and the renewable contracts still have to get paid. Another recession would be especially problematic with its concomitant reduction in power consumed. I'll watch for the January 2013 number of comparison

Ontario Hourly Electricity Breakdown Website

I saw this site on reddit/canada, where the contribution from different electricity sources for Ontario is shown hourly. According to the comments on reddit, solar isn't shown, although whether that exactly true or not is unknown.

At the writing of this post, wind is at 6%, when I looked yesterday it was at 8%. It should be fun to watch it bounce around, especially in the middle of the night when demand is low. Unfortunately, the province is contracted to pay for all wind produced which often results in excess power being exported to the US at a loss leading to the infamous "global adjustment" fee on your hydro bill. So ironically, less wind is often better for Ontarians.

The site is produced by the Canadian Nuclear Society, which isn't that surprising when nuclear is over 50% every time I've looked at it. No matter who produced, it is still quite interesting.