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Getting Zapped: Ontario electricity prices increasing faster than anywhere else
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Author Archives: energyprbe
Status Report on Ontario's Electricity Reforms
Successes So Far
- Reasonably solid legislative foundation
- Slow but solid progress commissioning a good physical wholesale market: on track for November
- Promotion of competition and price protection through the Market Power Mitigation Agreement (MPMA)
- Some (albeit shallow) “decontrol” achieved
Challenge: Rising publicly-backed debt/direct taxpayer losses
Expanding energy
After originally setting the year 2000 as its target, Ontario – Canada’s most power-hungry province – claims it will be ready for an electricity market open to competition, and market prices, by May 2002. What impact will this have on retailers?
Nuclear Surprise
On the windswept eastern shores of Lake Huron, the orange-coloured bulk of the world’s largest nuclear power station rises starkly against clear blue sky and the green trees that blanket the area. It’s a huge site, ringed by a security fence punctuated by motion detectors. You’d have to be a high-jumping deer to get in here. Within view, three of them have done just that, nibbling grass contentedly on the plant side of the steel mesh. Up close, the two main buildings look like a couple of Soviet-era apartment blocks. Continue reading
Electricity 'deals' deceiving
Read the fine print.
That’s the message from a consumer advocate and local utility manager as dozens of new power sellers market long-term contracts now before the electricity market opens to competition next spring.
Bruce deal 'a giveaway,' NDP says
The Ontario government has given British Energy PLC the ability to make exorbitant profits from the Bruce nuclear power station without taking on any risks, New Democratic Party Leader Howard Hampton charged in the legislature yesterday.
"For a $7.7-billion asset, British Energy is only going to pay rental fees of $16-million a year. What a giveaway," Mr. Hampton said, citing a report yesterday in the Globe and Mail based on documents obtained using the province’s freedom-of-information law.
Ontario power union head turns privatization choirboy
Not so long ago, John Murphy was president of the 15,000-member Power Workers Union of Ontario (PWU), a foe of privatized energy services and a supporter of the NDP. But the one-time staunch unionist surprised friends and foes alike last May when he quit that position to accept the job of executive vice-president for human resources at Ontario Power Generation (OPG), the major generator of electricity in the province in the new deregulated, post-Ontario Hydro era. Continue reading
California Daze
November 13, 2001
California’s continuing electricity nightmare
By Tom Adams, Energy Probe Continue reading
Power giant's best bet
Letters Editor
The Globe and Mail
Re: "Not-for profit Hydro One best path for power giant," November 20, 2001.
Hydro One's future
Hon. Jim Wilson MPP
Minister of Energy, Science and Technology
4th floor Hearst Block
Toronto, ON
M7A 2E1
Re: Hydro One’s Future
Dear Minister Wilson,
Energy Probe opposes converting Hydro One into a non-profit co-op controlled by political appointees.
Energy competition prompts end to all price controls
All price controls on Britain’s household electricity and gas sales were lifted on Monday by Callum McCarthy, energy industry regulator.
The move represents a decisive step in the liberalisation of Britain’s energy markets, which began 15 years ago when the gas industry was privatised. Few people then expected that consumers would be able to move freely between suppliers, which would compete against each other on price and service.
Energy Probe 