Thomas Adams
Toronto Star
August 24, 1998

This letter by Thomas Adams was in response to an article "Province’s Power Exchange is a wolf in sheep’s clothing" by Robert Blohm.

Ontarians have a major advantage to draw on in the effort to restructure our debt-laden electricity system – many other jurisdictions have gone before. Key lessons from the international experience contradict the advice of your author Robert Blohm.

The leading jurisdictions to install power exchanges like that proposed for Ontario — but opposed by Blohm — include the U.K., the state of Victoria (Australia), Alberta, and Argentina. Power rates have declined in all of these cases. In the U.K. for example, rates for homeowners have dropped 23% since competition was introduced and their power exchange started in 1989.

Efficient power exchanges have favoured not just consumers but the development of low emission, high efficiency cogeneration favoured by environmentalists. In Alberta for example, the introduction of competition and a power exchange has led to a explosion of cogeneration investment, sufficient to meet more than 10% of the province’s electricity demand. Alberta is also Canada’s leader in wind power, some of whose product is sold through the power exchange to consumers who want clean power.

Given Ontario’s dependence on highly polluting coal plants, Blohm’s opposition to legislated environmental requirements should concern everyone from asthmatics to bird watchers.

Sincerely,

Thomas Adams
Executive Director, Energy Probe