Ontario Government Queues Up Yet More Junk Generation

Posted by on

The Ontario government continues to roll out its plan to add thousands of megawatts of new wind and solar power.

Not content with the addition of 455 MW of costly, unneeded junk generation announced last week, next week
the government begins the justification process for the next round of long-term renewable energy contracts. The government initially called what happened last week the Long-term Renewable Procurement (LRP). Now, last week’s event has been renamed LRP I. Next up: LRP II.

Judging from the track record of what appears to be sham community consultations, central to the government’s program are measures that would encourage opponents of the government’s programs to burn up their time in consultation processes. Here is some more on the government’s power agency explaining how “the regulatory process works“.

If you thought the Ontario government’s last round of renewable energy procurement was stupid, what do you think about immediately repeating it? How dumb is that?

26 Comments

  1. Such “sham community consultations” are not only undertaken locally prior to the subsequent imposition of so-called Green/Clean Energy projects.

    They are a publicly-visible component of the well-documented “Strategic Planning for Sustainable Development” process that is a universally-applicable local means toward fulfillment of a preconceived end transformation of all sectors and systems (globally to locally).

    That process is outlined in the Appendix to the 1994 booklet titled Promoting Sustainable Development Through Local Strategic Actions – A Municipal Primer on the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), as prepared for the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) and Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) by The Canadian Urban Institute and The Urban Environment Centre.
    – Under Stakeholders and Public Consultation (pg 35), is this forewarning:
    “It may be difficult, if not impossible, to impose sustainable development practices on the public because it involves certain changes in people’s expectations and behaviour.”

    A more detailed description of that same process (also its background and framework) was provided in the 1996 Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide published by ICLEI, the IDRC & UNEP.

    Useful for facilitating (and/or justifying on phony consensus) the local imposition of any complementary plans, projects, policies & practices aligned to the UN’s global governance Agenda(s) “for sustainability”, adoption & execution of that process is one of the key sub-national means by which national governments are enabled to fulfill their obligations as signatories to international agreements/ plans (including Agenda 21).

  2. The OCAA and Greenpeace have recently been banging the drum over the price of the last LRP bids to add tempo to their constant droning re. scuttling the Darlington refurbs. Is the Energy Minister trying to jam enough junk generation on line to justify using the “off-ramps” he pointedly stated were in the OPG agreement? Or are the Liberals just continuing to fulfill commitments to its RE stakeholders buddies regardless of the cost to ratepayers. What are you thoughts Tom?

    • OCAA and Greenpeace are charlatans, pumping lies about how nuclear has been what’s been driving up rates. It is mind-boggling to me that anyone pays any attention to them, but they are clearly powerful.

      Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli cares so much about the outcome of the Darlington refurbs that he falls asleep during the briefings from OPG. The results of refurb won’t start to be known until 2025 or later. Long-term planning for Wynne’s gang focuses on 2018.

      I argued in my previous post that the Ontario government that has found a way to use the power system to spend on government initiatives without the costs appearing on the provincial accounts. By structuring costs to push the payments into the future, there seems to be little to limit in the near term to how much the government can spend. Replacing the cost-of-service financial model for the power system with a power-purchase-agreement model is one element of the plan to back-end load the recovery of costs, making costs appear lower in the near-term at the expense of future ratepayers.

      I am frustrated that this is the best explanation I have for the unprecedented politicization that is happening, but I don’t have a better theory. My deputations at legislative committees on Bills 112 and 135 discuss this creeping politicization in more detail.

      Eventually, the price elasticity of demand will force some constraint, but by then the power system’s liabilities will be very large. The steady decline in demand since 2005 shows this elasticity effect is becoming significant.

      The only constructive suggestions I have to offer to stabilize this situation are first to demand more transparency and second to strengthen the guardians, particularly the Auditor General and Financial Accountability Officer. I have given up hope that the IESO and OEB in their current state can be effective guardians.

      I’d dearly love to hear any better ideas.

      • I have to say you’ve been right on this all along. The Liberals have found a new way to tax and gift. The amazing thing is that the electorate has been so tolerant of what is going on. Early on in the GEA process, you pointed out the public money flowing to various “green energy” alliance groups. Obviously they were recruited to sell what was going to be bad news for many. That and the CBC/Star bias and the unqualified hype about RE in mainstream media in general have made bringing rational discussion to Ontario’s situation difficult. A green cloak can hide a lot of bad ideas these days.

        Many thanks to you and Scott for your combined efforts. Hoping for more.

  4. 2432243 Ontario Corp., Awarded IESO Solar Contract March, 2016.

    According to U.S. SEC filings, 2432243 is 100% owned by JA Solar Holdings Co.,LTD, Shanghai as of Sept.1, 2014.

    ——————————————————————-

    NASDAQ, JA Solar Holdings Co., Ltd., Major Shareholders include:

    OMERS Administration Corp./OAC, 60,000 shares as of Dec.31, 2015, Indicated new investment.

    ————————————————————————-

    OMERS Ventures Advisory Board includes;
    David J. Kassie also on the Board of SkyPower, Toronto

    SkyPower is majority owned by CIM Group Inc, Hollywood, Calif.
    Board includes:
    David J. Kassie
    Richard Ressler, CIM Group Inc.
    Kelly Eppich, CIM Group Inc.

    http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/jaso/institutional-holdings?page=3

    Or Google

  5. Sky Power (Canada) Ltd.
    Project: Ryerson Twp., ON

    Parent company: Sky Solar Holdings Ltd.
    Incorporated in Cayman Islands & HQ Hong Kong

    Yahoo Finance: Sky Solar Holdings as of Dec.31, 2015:
    Major holders:
    Invesco Ltd.
    Goldman Sachs Group
    UBS Group AG
    IDG-Accel China Capital Associates, 97 + million shares
    PowerShare Exchange Traded Funds

    https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=SKYS

Comments are closed.