Warmer weather means higher, faster water

By Canada News Wire


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Ontario Power Generation (OPG) officials are reminding parents to use extreme care around Ontario waterways this spring, particularly on rivers and lakes that are near hydroelectric stations and dams.

"Our message is: Stay Clear! Stay Safe!" said Dave Heath, Plant Manager for OPG's Niagara Plant Group.

"Easter is the first long weekend so people start to think about being outdoors. Fishing and boating season is right around the corner and this is the perfect time to go over water safety plans with your friends and family," he added.

Most hydroelectric facilities are remotely controlled by operators who may be kilometres away. To meet the fluctuating demand for electricity throughout the day, these operators open or close dams or start or stop generators as needed. This causes frequent and rapid changes in the water flow and levels often creating strong undertows, turbulence, and sudden, powerful gushes of water moving downstream in what was once calm looking surface water.

All waterways where an OPG dam or hydroelectric station is located have well-positioned warning signs, buoys, fences, booms, and barriers.

"They are there for the public's safety and to let everyone know that the areas around the signs are dangerous, so Stay Clear! Stay Safe says Heath.

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B.C. Hydro adds more vehicle charging stations across southern B.C.

BC Hydro EV Charging Stations expand provincewide with DC fast chargers, 80% in 30 minutes at 35 c/kWh, easing range anxiety across Vancouver, Vancouver Island, Coquihalla Highway, East Kootenay, between Kamloops and Prince George.

 

Key Points

Public DC fast-charging network across B.C. enabling 80% charge in 30 minutes to cut EV range anxiety.

✅ 28 new stations added; 30 launched in 2016

✅ 35 c/kWh; about $3.50 per tank equivalent

✅ Coverage: Vancouver, Island, Coquihalla, East Kootenay

 

B.C. Hydro is expanding its network of electric vehicle charging stations.

The Crown utility says 28 new stations complete the second phase of its fast-charging network and are in addition to the 30 stations opened in 2016.

Thirteen of the stations are in Metro Vancouver, seven are on Vancouver Island, including one at the Pacific Rim Visitor Centre near Tofino, another is in Campbell River, and two have opened on the Coquihalla segment of B.C.'s Electric Highway at the Britton Creek rest area.

A further six stations are located throughout the East Kootenay and B.C. Hydro says the next phase of its program will connect drivers travelling between Kamloops and Prince George, while stations in Prince Rupert are also being planned.

BC Hydro has also opened a fast charging site in Lillooet, illustrating expansion into smaller communities.

Hydro spokeswoman Mora Scott says the stations can charge an electric vehicle to 80 per cent in just 30 minutes, at a cost of 35 cents per kilowatt hour.

Mora Scott says that translates to roughly $3.50 for the equivalent of a full tank of gas in the average four-cylinder car.

“The number of electric vehicles on B.C. roads is increasing, there’s currently around 9,000 across the province, and we actually expect that number to rise to 300,000 by 2030,” Scott says in a news release.

In partnership with municipalities, regional districts and several businesses, B.C. Hydro has been installing charging stations throughout the province since 2012 with support from the provincial and federal governments and programs such as EV charger rebates available to residents.

Scott says the utility wants to ensure the stations are placed where drivers need them so charging options are available provincewide.

“One big thing that we know drivers of electric vehicles worry about is the concept called range anxiety, that the stations aren’t going to be where they need them,” she says.

Several models of electric vehicle are now capable of travelling up to 500 kilometres on a single charge, says Scott.

BC Hydro president Chris O’Riley says the new charging sites will encourage electric vehicle drivers to explore B.C. this summer.

 

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Toronto Prepares for a Surge in Electricity Demand as City Continues to Grow

Toronto Electricity Demand Growth underscores IESO projections of rising peak load by 2050, driven by population growth, electrification, new housing density, and tech economy, requiring grid modernization, transmission upgrades, demand response, and local renewable energy.

 

Key Points

It refers to the projected near-doubling of Toronto's peak load by 2050, driven by electrification and urban growth.

✅ IESO projects peak demand nearly doubling by 2050

✅ Drivers: population, densification, EVs, heat pumps

✅ Solutions: efficiency, transmission, storage, demand response

 

Toronto faces a significant challenge in meeting the growing electricity needs of its expanding population and ambitious development plans. According to a new report from Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), Toronto's peak electricity demand is expected to nearly double by 2050. This highlights the need for proactive steps to secure adequate electricity supply amidst the city's ongoing economic and population growth.


Key Factors Driving Demand

Several factors are contributing to the projected increase in electricity demand:

Population Growth: Toronto is one of the fastest-growing cities in North America, and this trend is expected to continue. More residents mean more need for housing, businesses, and other electricity-consuming infrastructure.

  • New Homes and Density: The city's housing strategy calls for 285,000 new homes within the next decade, including significant densification in existing neighbourhoods. High-rise buildings in urban centers are generally more energy-intensive than low-rise residential developments.
  • Economic Development: Toronto's robust economy, a hub for tech and innovation, attracts new businesses, including energy-intensive AI data centers that fuel further demand for electricity.
  • Electrification: The push to reduce carbon emissions is driving the electrification of transportation and home heating, further increasing pressure on Toronto's electricity grid.


Planning for the Future

Ontario and the City of Toronto recognize the urgency to secure stable and reliable electricity supplies to support continued growth and prosperity without sacrificing affordability, drawing lessons from British Columbia's clean energy shift to inform local approaches. Officials are collaborating to develop a long-term plan that focuses on:

  • Energy Efficiency: Efforts aim to reduce wasteful electricity usage through upgrades to existing buildings, promoting energy-efficient appliances, and implementing smart grid technologies. These will play a crucial role in curbing overall demand.
  • New Infrastructure: Significant investments in building new electricity generation, transmission lines, and substations, as well as regional macrogrids to enhance reliability, will be necessary to meet the projected demands of Toronto's future.
  • Demand Management: Programs incentivizing energy conservation during peak hours will help to avoid strain on the grid and reduce the need to build expensive power plants only used at peak demand times.


Challenges Ahead

The path ahead isn't without its hurdles.  Building new power infrastructure in a dense urban environment like Toronto can be time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes disruptive, especially as grids face harsh weather risks that complicate construction and operations. Residents and businesses might worry about potential rate increases required to fund these necessary investments.


Opportunity for Innovation

The IESO and the city view the situation as an opportunity to embrace innovative solutions. Exploring renewable energy sources within and near the city, developing local energy storage systems, and promoting distributed energy generation such as rooftop solar, where power is created near the point of use, are all vital strategies for meeting needs in a sustainable way.

Toronto's electricity future depends heavily on proactive planning and investment in modernizing its power infrastructure.  The decisions made now will determine whether the city can support economic growth, address climate goals and a net-zero grid by 2050 ambition, and ensure that lights stay on for all Torontonians as the city continues to expand.
 

 

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Hydro One Q2 profit plunges 23% as electricity revenue falls, costs rise

Hydro One Q2 Earnings show lower net income and EPS as mild weather curbed electricity demand; revenue missed Refinitiv estimates, while tree-trimming costs rose and the dividend remained unchanged for Ontario's grid operator.

 

Key Points

Hydro One Q2 earnings fell to $155M, EPS $0.26, revenue $1.41B; costs rose, demand eased, dividend held at $0.2415.

✅ Net income $155M; EPS $0.26 vs $0.34 prior year

✅ Revenue $1.41B; missed $1.44B estimate

✅ Dividend steady at $0.2415 per share

 

Hydro One Ltd.'s (H.TO 0.25%) second-quarter profit fell by nearly 23 per cent from last year to $155 million as the electricity utility reported spending more on tree-trimming work due to milder temperatures that also saw customers using less power, notwithstanding other periods where a one-time court ruling gain shaped quarterly results.

The Toronto-based company - which operates most of Ontario's power grid - and whose regulated rates are subject to an OEB decision, says its net earnings attributable to shareholders dropped to 26 cents per share from 34 cents per share when Hydro One had $200 million in net income.

Adjusted net income was also 26 cents per share, down from 33 cents per diluted share in the second quarter of 2018, while executive pay, including the CEO salary, drew public scrutiny during the period.

Revenue was $1.41 billion, down from $1.48 billion, while revenue net of purchased power was $760 million, down from $803 million, and across the sector, Manitoba Hydro's debt has surged as well.

Separately, Ontario introduced a subsidized hydro plan and tax breaks to support economic recovery from COVID-19, which could influence consumption patterns.

Analysts had estimated $1.44 billion of revenue and 27 cents per share of adjusted income, and some investors cite too many unknowns in evaluating the stock, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.

The publicly traded company, which saw a share-price drop after leadership changes and of which the Ontario government is the largest shareholder, says its quarterly dividend will remain at 24.15 cents per share for its next payment to shareholders in September.

 

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Hydroelectricity Under Pumped Storage Capacity

Pumped Storage Hydroelectricity balances renewable energy, stabilizes the grid, and provides large-scale energy storage using reservoirs and reversible turbines, delivering flexible peak power, frequency control, and rapid response to variable wind and solar generation.

 

Key Points

A reversible hydro system that stores energy by pumping water uphill, then generates flexible peak power.

✅ Balances variable wind and solar with rapid ramping

✅ Stores off-peak electricity in upper reservoirs

✅ Enhances grid stability, frequency control, and reserves

 

The expense of hydroelectricity is moderately low, making it a serious wellspring of sustainable power. The hydro station burns-through no water, dissimilar to coal or gas plants. The commonplace expense of power from a hydro station bigger than 10 megawatts is 3 to 5 US pennies for every kilowatt hour, and Niagara Falls powerhouse upgrade projects show how modernization can further improve efficiency and reliability. With a dam and supply it is likewise an adaptable wellspring of power, since the sum delivered by the station can be shifted up or down quickly (as meager as a couple of moments) to adjust to changing energy requests.

When a hydroelectric complex is developed, the task creates no immediate waste, and it for the most part has an extensively lower yield level of ozone harming substances than photovoltaic force plants and positively petroleum product fueled energy plants, with calls to invest in hydropower highlighting these benefits. In open-circle frameworks, unadulterated pumped storage plants store water in an upper repository with no normal inflows, while pump back plants use a blend of pumped storage and regular hydroelectric plants with an upper supply that is renewed to a limited extent by common inflows from a stream or waterway.

Plants that don't utilize pumped capacity are alluded to as ordinary hydroelectric plants, and initiatives focused on repowering existing dams continue to expand clean generation; regular hydroelectric plants that have critical capacity limit might have the option to assume a comparable function in the electrical lattice as pumped capacity by conceding yield until required.

The main use for pumped capacity has customarily been to adjust baseload powerplants, however may likewise be utilized to decrease the fluctuating yield of discontinuous fuel sources, while emerging gravity energy storage concepts broaden long-duration options. Pumped capacity gives a heap now and again of high power yield and low power interest, empowering extra framework top limit.

In specific wards, power costs might be near zero or once in a while negative on events that there is more electrical age accessible than there is load accessible to retain it; despite the fact that at present this is infrequently because of wind or sunlight based force alone, expanded breeze and sun oriented age will improve the probability of such events.

All things considered, pumped capacity will turn out to be particularly significant as an equilibrium for exceptionally huge scope photovoltaic age. Increased long-distance bandwidth, including hydropower imports from Canada, joined with huge measures of energy stockpiling will be a critical piece of directing any enormous scope sending of irregular inexhaustible force sources. The high non-firm inexhaustible power entrance in certain districts supplies 40% of yearly yield, however 60% might be reached before extra capaciy is fundamental.

Pumped capacity plants can work with seawater, despite the fact that there are extra difficulties contrasted with utilizing new water. Initiated in 1966, the 240 MW Rance flowing force station in France can incompletely function as a pumped storage station. At the point when elevated tides happen at off-top hours, the turbines can be utilized to pump more seawater into the repository than the elevated tide would have normally gotten. It is the main enormous scope power plant of its sort.

Alongside energy mechanism, pumped capacity frameworks help control electrical organization recurrence and give save age. Warm plants are substantially less ready to react to abrupt changes in electrical interest, and can see higher thermal PLF during periods of reduced hydro generation, conceivably causing recurrence and voltage precariousness.

Pumped storage plants, as other hydroelectric plants, including new BC generating stations, can react to stack changes in practically no time. Pumped capacity hydroelectricity permits energy from discontinuous sources, (for example, sunlight based, wind) and different renewables, or abundance power from consistent base-load sources, (for example, coal or atomic) to be put something aside for times of more popularity.

The repositories utilized with siphoned capacity are tiny when contrasted with ordinary hydroelectric dams of comparable force limit, and creating periods are regularly not exactly a large portion of a day. This technique produces power to gracefully high top requests by moving water between repositories at various heights.

Now and again of low electrical interest, the abundance age limit is utilized to pump water into the higher store. At the point when the interest gets more noteworthy, water is delivered once more into the lower repository through a turbine. Pumped capacity plans at present give the most monetarily significant methods for enormous scope matrix energy stockpiling and improve the every day limit factor of the age framework. Pumped capacity isn't a fuel source, and shows up as a negative number in postings.

 

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Kyiv warns of 'difficult' winter after deadly strikes

Ukraine Winter Energy Attacks strain the power grid as Russian missile strikes hit critical infrastructure, causing blackouts, civilian casualties, and damage in Kyiv, Kherson, and Kharkiv, underscoring air defense needs and looming cold-weather risks.

 

Key Points

Russian strikes on energy infrastructure cause outages, damage, and harm as Ukraine braces for freezing winter months.

✅ Russian missile barrage targets critical infrastructure nationwide.

✅ Power cuts reported in 400 localities; grid stability at risk.

✅ Kyiv seeks more air defenses as winter threats intensify.

 

Ukraine has warned that a difficult winter looms ahead after a massive Russian missile barrage targeted civilian infrastructure, killing three in the south and wounding many across the country.

Russia launched the strikes as Ukraine prepares for a third winter during Moscow's 19-month long invasion and as President Volodymyr Zelensky made his second wartime trip to Washington amid a U.S. end to grid support announcement.

"Most of the missiles were shot down. But only the majority. Not all," Zelensky said, calling for the West to provide Kyiv with more anti-missile systems to help keep the lights on this winter amid ongoing attacks.

The fresh attack came as Poland said it would honour pre-existing commitments of weapons supplies to Kyiv, a day after saying it would no longer arm its neighbour in a mounting row between the two allies.

Moscow hit cities from Rivne in western Ukraine to Kherson in the south, the capital Kyiv and cities in the centre and northeast of the country.

Kyiv also reported power cuts across the country -- in almost 400 cities, towns and villages -- as Russia targeted power plants across the grid, but said it was "too early" to tell if this was the start of a new Russian campaign against its energy sites.

Officials added that electricity reserves could limit scheduled outages if no new large-scale strikes occur.

Last winter many Ukrainians had to go without electricity and heating in freezing temperatures as Russia hit Kyiv's energy facilities.

"Difficult months are ahead: Russia will attack energy and critically important facilities," said Oleksiy Kuleba, the deputy head of Kyiv's presidential office.

Ukraine also said that it had struck a military airfield in Moscow-annexed Crimea, a claim denied by Russian-installed authorities.

'Ceilings fell down'
Russia's overnight strikes were deadliest in the southern Kherson, where three people were killed.

In Kyiv's eastern Darnitsky district, frightened residents of a dormitory woke up to their rooms with shattered windows and parked cars outside completely burnt out.

Communities have also adopted new energy solutions to cope with winter blackouts, from generators to shared warming points.

Debris from a downed missile in the capital wounded seven people, including a child.

"God, god, god," Maya Pelyukh, a cleaner who lives in the building, said as she looked at her living room covered in broken glass and debris on her bed.

Her windows and door were blown away, with the 50-year-old saying she crawled out from under a door frame.

Some residents outside were still in dressing gowns as they watched emergency workers put out a fire the authorities said had spread over 400 square meters (4,300 square feet).

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv seamstresses were clearing a damaged clothing factory, with a Russian missile hitting nearby.

"The ceilings fell down. Windows were blown out. There are chunks of the road inside," Yulia Barantsova said, as she cleared a sewing machine from dust and rubble.

 

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Ontario Government Consults On Changes To Industrial Electricity Pricing And Programs

Ontario electricity pricing consultations will gather business input on OEB rate design, Industrial Conservation Initiative, dynamic pricing, global adjustment, and system costs through online feedback and sector-specific in-person sessions province-wide.

 

Key Points

Consultations gathering business input on rates, programs, and OEB policy to improve fairness and reduce system costs.

✅ Consults on ICI, GA, dynamic pricing structures

✅ Seeks views on OEB C&I rate design changes

✅ In-person sessions across key industrial sectors

 

The Ontario government has announced plans to hold consultations to seek input from businesses about industrial electricity pricing and programs. This will be done through Ontario's online consultations directory and though in-person sector-specific consultation sessions across the province. The in-person sessions will be held in all areas of Ontario, and will target "key industries," including automotive and the build-out of electric vehicle charging stations infrastructure, forestry, mining, agriculture, steel, manufacturing and chemicals.

On April 1, 2019, the Ontario government published a consultation notice for this process, confirming that it is looking for input on "electricity rate design, existing tax-based incentives, reducing system costs and regulatory and delivery costs," including related proposals such as the hydrogen rate reduction proposal under discussion. The consultation process includes a list of nine questions for respondents (and presumably participants in the in-person sessions) to address. These include questions about:

The benefits of the Industrial Conservation Initiative (described below), including how it could be changed to improve fairness and industrial competitiveness, and how it could complement programs like the Hydrogen Innovation Fund that support industrial innovation.

Dynamic pricing structures that allow for lower rates in return for responding to price signals versus a flat rate structure that potentially costs more, but is more stable and predictable, as Ontario's energy storage expansion accelerates.

Interest in an all-in commodity contract with an electricity retailer, even if it involves a risk premium.

Interested parties are invited to submit their comments before May 31, 2019.

The government's consultation announcement follows recent developments in the Ontario Energy Board's (OEB) review of electricity ratemaking for commercial and industrial customers, and intertie projects such as the Lake Erie Connector that could affect market dynamics.

In December 2018, the OEB published a paper from its Market Surveillance Panel (MSP) examining the Industrial Conservation Initiative (ICI), and potential alternative approaches. The ICI is a program that allows qualifying large industrial customers to base their global adjustment (GA) payments on their consumption during five peak demand hours in a year. Customers who find ways to reduce consumption at those times, perhaps through DERs and enabling energy storage options, will reduce their electricity costs. This shifts GA costs to other customers. The MSP found that the ICI does not fairly allocate costs to those who cause them and/or benefit from them, and recommends that a better approach should be developed.

In February 2019, the OEB released its Staff Report to the Board on Rate Design for Commercial and Industrial Electricity Customers, setting out recommendations for new rate designs for electricity commercial and industrial (C&I) rate classes as Ontario increasingly turns to battery storage to meet rising demand. As described in an earlier post, the Staff Report includes recommendations to: (i) establish a fixed distribution charge for commercial customers with demands under 10 kW; (ii) implement a demand charge (rather than the current volumetric charge) for C&I customers with demands between 10kW and 50kW; and (iii) introduce a "capacity reserve charge" for customers with load displacement generation to replace stand-by charges and provide for recognition of the benefits of this generation on the system. The OEB held a stakeholder information session in mid-March on this initiative, and interested parties are now filing submissions in response to the Staff Report.

Whether and how the OEB's processes will fit together with the government's consultation process remains to be seen.

 

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