Originally Posted By: Joshua_Skinner
I'm confused. You say that your "hydro rates" have tripled. Do you mean your electric rates?
As Garak noted, hydro=electricity in Ontario dialect.
Originally Posted By: Joshua_Skinner
If so then how much of that rate increase do you attribute to the cost of the nuke plant refurbishments?
None, the rate increase coincided with Ontario's "Green Energy Initiative" whose purpose was to artificially subsidize wind and solar and provide subsidies and grants for that purpose. The 30 year refurb cycle is factored into guaranteed payments and overall costs of the nuke sites, though they (the refurb projects) tend to go way over budget. Also, things get a bit messy here as for example Bruce Power sells its power to the grid at the going rate for nuclear, Bruce was the one that was refurb'd at the onset of all of this and the generators do not set the rates, that's handled by the OEB (Ontario Energy Board). However the guaranteed rates are based on the operating costs of the plants and the nukes are ~6.3c/Kw/hr IIRC.
Originally Posted By: Joshua_Skinner
You mention grant money for the solar farm. Did that money come from rate payers? If not then how do you attribute the rate increase to the solar farm? I hear that you're angry with how money is being spent and the increases in your rates, but I don't follow the lines you're drawing.
The grant money comes from the Provincial government who takes that money from the rate payers in the form of taxes and fees which we see on our hydro bills. Hydro ONE is (mostly) owned by the province of Ontario, though at this point there is now a small public ownership of it as our moronic Premier can't manage money and was/is trying to sell off the Utility to fund infrastructure improvements. She also managed to overvalue it by 2x
The rest of it would have been payed for by the local utility, but they benefit from the higher (subsidized) feed-in rates for the solar farm, so despite it not being a big generator, they get more money "on the market" for that plant than they do for other generating means.
Some links that might help:
http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/en/green-energy-act/
And this one is a particularly good summary:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Energy_Act_2009
Of course as noted in the second link the OEB (Ontario Energy Board, who sets the rates) says that it is coincidence that the rates increased dramatically after the GEP was implemented
Not that they have a vested interest in this at all..... And they say the increase is mostly due to the guaranteed payments to the other generating methods, but of course that's always been the case, the difference is now that they are subsidizing another entire sector and that's having an impact on those other generating methods with Bruce dumping steam to deal with the renewables coming on-line because it is cheaper to do that then sell the (more expensive) green energy at a loss to the USA and Quebec.
Now, not only have we been paying higher rates, but we've actually been paying TOO high of rates as has been discovered by the auditor general:
http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2...or-general.html
Quote:
Ontario’s electricity consumers are being zapped for tens of billions of dollars due to overpriced green energy, poor government planning, and shoddy service from Hydro One, says auditor general Bonnie Lysyk.
In her annual report, she concluded ratepayers forked out $37 billion more than necessary from 2006 to 2014 and will spend an additional $133 billion by 2032 due to global adjustment electricity fees on hydro bills.
*snip*
She found Ontario’s push to promote wind and solar energy is unnecessarily costly and the government ignored warnings from the now-defunct Ontario Power Authority that some power plants, like a biomass-fuelled station near Thunder Bay, were prohibitively expensive.
Lysyk estimated consumers could end up paying $9.2 billion more for renewable energy over 20-year contracts issued under the Green Energy Act with guaranteed prices set at double the U.S. market price for wind and at 3.5 times the going rate for solar last year.
“With wind and solar prices around the world beginning to decline around 2008, a competitive process would have meant much lower costs,” she wrote, noting the government ignored advice from the Ontario Power Authority to seek bids for large renewable energy projects.
The cost of refurbishing Darlington (the nuke plant currently getting done) is costing 12.8 billion, significantly less than what we've overpaid on energy since 2006.
Also, since the renewables come online "whenever", and that power has to go somewhere, it gets sold at a loss. This is illustrated here:
On this one, Bruce and OPG are the nukes:
And our rate increase just since 2010:
There's a lot to be angry at.
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