Ontario's wind power plans don't add up

In 2009, more than 1,200 megawatts [of wind power] will be online.
That’s enough to power almost 325,000 homes.

Premier Dalton McGuinty
Announcement
February 3, 2009

Ontario is investing heavily in renewable energy, including wind power, with the aim of creating jobs, protecting the environment and combating climate change.

I support these goals and I want to see my tax dollars spent effectively in their pursuit. I'm not so sure about the means.

How effective are wind power installations? Are they delivering the promised results? At what cost?

Homes Powered
One frequently sees representations such as the Premier's yesterday: x amount of wind power is enough to power y number of homes. I would love to see claims like this proven. My own math raises some questions:

The average annual capacity factor for the main wind installations in Ontario is about 28%. (The statistics for Ontario wind generators are available through the IESO web site at http://www.ieso.ca.)

The premier's projected 2009 wind capacity number represents an average generation capacity of about 336 MW (1200 x 28%). According to the IESO, the average Ontario household uses 1 MWh per month. The 2009 wind turbines would, if they generated 336 MW for each hour, every day for a month, generate 241,920 MWh of power (336 x 24 x 30). That would suggest the 325,000 homes claim is about a third too high.

Unfortunately, this example is too generous because it assumes a perfect match of generation with consumption. The reality is that wind output is often poorly matched to demand.

According, again, to the IESO web site, peak demand in Ontario yesterday (February 3rd) occurred at 7pm at 21,181 MW. Wind production at 7pm was 244 MW, or 1.15% of the total. (Wind capacity overall is 887 MW, so the capacity factor at 7pm was 27.5%, or very close to average.) Of the 4,554,250 households in Ontario, one could say 1.15% or the equivalent 52,374 homes were being powered by wind. If, by the end of the year, wind generation capacity were to increase by about 35% to the 1200 MW mentioned in the Premier's statement, one could estimate about 70,700 homes would be powered by wind, during a typical winter’s day peak, at average wind capacity factor.

This is of course a far cry from 325,000 homes.


Eliminating coal
The Premier and other ministers often link the addition of wind generation capacity with the elimination of coal generation. I hope Ontario can eliminate coal generation. But I wonder how realistic that is without some other source of electricity generation coming on stream, or a significant reduction in demand.

To use a real example again, Feb 3, 2009 at 7pm coal provided 2,893 MW of the 21,181 MW peak demand, or about 13%. At the average wind capacity factor of 28% (which, as it happened, was also almost exactly the real wind capacity factor at 7pm), we’d need 10,332 MW of nameplate wind capacity to replace to power coming from coal. That is more than an 11-fold increase over today’s capacity of 887 MW.

If you are conservative, and plan for a 10% capacity factor (the actual wind capacity factor during the summer months), you’d need 28,930 MW of nameplate capacity for wind, or about 14,000 new 2 MW turbines. At up to CDN$4 million per turbine, the cost would reach $56 billion, plus the subsidies for the electricity generated.

Finally, wind generation does fall short of even 10% capacity quite regularly. Of the 24 hours of Feb 3rd, 11 hours had wind generating less than 10% of capacity.

Wind proponents speak of storage solutions to help reduce the variability of wind generation. Storage solutions (pumped storage and electric car batteries are two methods frequently mentioned) can theoretically smooth the amounts of power delivered, but they do not increase it. And they come at a high operating cost, with power-loss estimates I’ve seen in the 25% range. I have not seen any Ontario government capital cost estimates for large-scale energy storage solutions, but I don’t believe they would be cheap.

The idea of replacing coal with wind may be good politics, but the math doesn’t add up for me. Neither do exaggerated claims about how many homes wind would actually power.

Looking for Reconciliation

Now, with the latest technology, a country like Canada, specifically Ontario for instance, could easily implement 20,000 MW of wind power in the next five years. Combined with the existing hydro power this would make Ontario 100% powered by renewable energy.

Dr. Hermann Scheer

There is no sensible alternative to nuclear power if we are to sustain civilization.... [Solar and wind energy programs] will fail and bring discredit both to the greens and to the politicians foolish enough to adopt renewables as a major source of energy before they have been properly developed.

James Lovelock

Scheer is the German parliamentarian who has been called the Al Gore of Europe for his support for a law that helped to add renewables quickly to German grid. A number of recent stories in Canadian media describe his prescription:

1. Guaranteed access to the grid
2. Guaranteed long term price
3. No limit

A new alliance of Canadian environmental groups has taken up the charge and begun lobbying Ontarians to apply this approach.

Lovelock originated the Gaia Theory and he's known to many as the father of modern environmentalism. His latest book is called Revenge of Gaia, and in it he says the Earth is headed for a dramatic period of warming and there's not much we can do about it, especially if we continue to "gamble away earth’s future by campaigning for renewable energy sources."

Lovelock and Scheer have a lot in common: They both see the need to get off fossil fuels; they both see looming climate change if something drastic doesn't happen. Lovelock says we have to build nuclear power fast; Scheer says wind, solar and biomass are the better solutions.

Such disparate opinions lead me to think Ontarians, and everyone else on the planet, had better start getting a whole lot more knowledgeable about the underlying facts of these issues.

Because the plans afoot today -- all the things we do or don't do as a society -- are going to have profound effects on our landscapes, our economy, our environment and everything else. Neither environmentalism or energy policy should be monopolized by members of a "preisthood" who claim to have all the answers.

In upcoming posts I want to walk through the differing visions of these, and other prominent scientists, politicians and thinkers, and figure out what gives.

As I said in the first post, what keeps me real is a lifelong connection to a place that formed me more than any other.

The specific geography probably wouldn't have mattered -- I just happen to have imprinted on a big freshwater lake, where one coast is scattered with an improbably large number of bald, rocky islands, and a smattering of wind-battered pine trees cling to life.

Whatever sacrifices may be required of us as a society, our connections to unspoiled places and our appreciation for the sublime in nature must not be broken.

Origins

My great-grandfather began spending summers in the Parry Sound area, on Georgian Bay, at the turn of the last century. Eventually, he built a tent platform on an island across from Bear's Head, near the entrance to the South Channel. My mother and my aunt grew up spending summers in this place, and so, in my turn, did I.

This place gets into your soul. It intertwines with your life and changes you.

So when I think about the big issues of our time -- the economy, or the environment, or where energy should come from -- the internal compass that steers me through those thoughts is pointing, more often then not, straight to a wind-blasted piece of Precambrian Shield where I became who I am today.