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Ontario faces energy shortage on heat wave, idled power plants
Ontario is in its worst energy crunch in three years as a heat wave, record electricity demand and idled nuclear plants force Canada’s most populous province to rely on imported power.
Energy authorities this week asked residents to reduce consumption as temperatures climbed as high as 34 degrees Celsius (93 Fahrenheit), boosting demand from air conditioners. The maximum temperature in Toronto so far this month has averaged 30.3 degrees Celsius, or 3.5 degrees higher than the norm since 1971.
Two year anniversary of blackout
It has been two years since Ontarians spent the night in the dark and experts say residents have not learned the lessons of the blackout.
It was a sweaty August 14th, 2003 when a fault in Ohio led to a massive power outage across Ontario and the eastern US.
The executive director of Energy Probe says the province continues to hit record consumption levels.
In an effort to avoid rolling blackouts this summer, Hydro officials have instituted rolling brownouts to conserve electricity.
$113.5 million owed for electricity bill
The oppressive heat wave that prompted Ontario residents to crank up their air conditioners has subsided but it has left a costly electricity bill in its wake.
To date, residents on the regulated electricity rate plan have underpaid their hydro bills by $113.5 million for the period from April 1 to July 31.
At the end of June that amount was $42.1 million, but it skyrocketed after electricity demand broke records during July’s heat wave, and tight supply caused a dramatic spike in market prices.
Ontario Power Generation to spend C$985mln on tunnel
Ontario Power Generation, the utility that provides most of the province’s power, will spend C$985 million ($807 million) to build a water tunnel that will boost production at a hydroelectric plant near Niagara Falls. see Niagara Tunnel Project.
The German unit of Austria’s Bauholding Strabag SE has received a C$600 million contract to construct the 10.4-kilometer (6.5-mile) tunnel, which will supply water to the Sir Adam Beck Generating Complex, provincially owned Ontario Power said today in a statement. Continue reading
Ontario to promote clean power
The Ontario government is preparing to unveil a program next month that would encourage homeowners, farmers, schools and community co-ops to set up renewable energy systems by letting them sell "clean" power to the grid at a fixed premium.
Energy Minister Dwight Duncan, in an interview with the Star, said the program would be limited to smaller projects, typically less than 10 megawatts, but over time could add thousands of megawatts of renewable power to a strained provincial grid being weaned from coal.
Utility out $5.2M in bungled operation
Enwin Powerlines paid $5.2 million too much for a new computerized billing system that it bought for the deregulated electricity market, an accounting audit shows.
Auditors also said Enwin mismanaged the computer project with poor planning and a lack of oversight over private contractors hired to design and program the system. Managers bungled the project by not making sure the system was delivered as ordered and on time, documents said.
Ontario's energy crunch
Consumers in Ontario should brace for a double whammy of higher electricity and natural gas bills as a hot summer combined with energy shortages begin to hit home.
Consumers are now paying artificially low prices for electricity and natural gas. But that is about to change.
Ontario’s energy regulator announced yesterday that the shortfall between what the province is paying to buy electricity on the open market and what it charges consumers doubled to $228.8-million at the end of August from $113.5-million at the end of July.
Atlantic coal plant dirtiest, green group says
A New Brunswick coal-fired power plant is the dirtiest power generator of its kind in North America, says a national energy and environmental research group.
The report by Energy Probe says New Brunswick Power’s Grand Lake station has the worst acid gas pollution rate among more than 400 coal plants on the continent.
The station has been operating since 1931.
Duncan won't listen to 'Neanderthals'
Ontario has no plans to listen to "Neanderthals" who want the province to keep its coal-burning power plants operating, even if that’s what a report being prepared for the government recommends, says Energy Minister Dwight Duncan.
Energy Probe 