Deregulated Electricity Market

Unfortunately Ontario has some bigger problems to worry about before we can install that US-connection trip switch you mentioned, like increasing our generating capacity to a level which allows us to sustain our own demand. <p>At the time leading up to the blackout, Ontario's net demand exceeded available supply by approximately 1230 MW. Even if we had a "switch" that could have isolated us from the various American transmission grids, it's doubtful that Ontario's electricity system could have gracefully handled such a large transient drop in supply. Our generating stations went down due to overload trip-outs when a sudden surge in demand from the grid hit them. I suspect the same thing would have happened to us even if we had better isolation from the American system.

Funny thing is, Ontario never had a problem when we were still under the old Ontario Hydro province wide public system. It`s when they privatized, and split Ontario Hydro up, that`s when they started the \'brownout\' warnings. Another thing we should have is instead of each province or region of the country being linked up to neighbouring states, we should have a power grid which spans Canada. Truthfully, Canada has more than enough hydro, and other energy sources, for its own domestic need. But the continentalists in Canada try to paint a different picture, one of fragile and helpless dependency on the US for everything!

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Dave Ruston

Quebec has an ample supply, and they sell much of it to the U.S.

That brings up the question: why don\'t they sell it to us ?? Their James Bay project is working well, as far as I know, so reliability would not be a problem.

Sorry I forgot to login. I hate it when that happens !!



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"Arrogance in Politics is unacceptable"
Jim Callaghan
Minden, Ontario
705-286-1860
www.misterc.ca

I agree with your point that problems with Ontario\'s electricity grid were substantially fewer when the entire system was managed under Ontario Hydro.

What I hear from inside OPG is that it used to be alot easier to handle the coordination of generation and distribution within one entity. Now because of various inter-organizational barriers, communication between the IMO and various generating stations is slower, and it\'s harder for all participants in the system to know what\'s going on than it used to be. Communication delays clearly have a detrimental effect on how well our electricity system operates.


As for a Canadian national transmission grid, I would guess that technically such a thing already exists. Certainly Ontario has links to neighbours Manitoba and Quebec. In fact, my understanding is that our link to Manitoba was what kept the lights on in northern Ontario while the rest of us were trying to barbeque all our thawing meat.

That being said, two points need to be made : (1) there\'s a limit to how much power a transmission line can carry; and (2) electricity transmission is inefficient over long distances. Sending juice across the line uses energy. Therefore, from a capital-expenditure point of view, it\'s far more effective to spend money on building generation capacity locally than it is on building high-capacity interprovincial transmission lines.

At the time of the blackout, Quebec was selling power to Ontario. The maximum capacity of the transmission lines connecting the two provinces is 1750 MW, I believe, and this capacity was in full use at the time of the blackout. This line dropped out of service during the blackout in order to isolate the Quebec grid from Ontario.

Yeah, you`re right, power diminishes with distance, but I do think that a national grid with many \'local\' reinforcing power stations can be a secure, viable system. B.C. was able to transfer electricity to California during their blackout problems. I know that`s not as far as, say, B.C. to Quebec, but with interconnections and powerstations nation wide... I don`t know, I`m just sick of the emphasis on the north-south exchange!

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Dave Ruston

Dave, there\'s talk of a new project in northern Manitoba to supply Ontario.....of course, every dam has environmental impactts, like m,ercury pollution from built up wood, and diminished fish habitat, as well as harming the Aboriginal lands, although they are still a better alternative than coal, wind or nuclear, in my opinion.

Also, isn\'t the James Bay project secretly designed to allow bulk water exports to hte States.....have you been to Canspiracy? Visit the link on this page if you haven\'t read it.

Ontario NDP premier Bob Rae decided to drop funding for a Manitoba hydrpelectric project, and find nuclear instead....this cost us big money, and headaches....there\'s talk of a new Manitoba damn, that would annoy Aboriginals, (and fish) but it\'s our best bet.