what on earth does electricity cost near you?

[Fastball]

Yeah... Ontario Hydro is one messed-up place, and every politician after another promises to fix it up. I totally get the off-peak useage differences, etc...but it's all thos office buildings that have lights on 24/7 and the stores that have the A/C down to Arctic levels in the summer. The Aaverage homeowner can be as efficient as he wants - but it doesn't matter a hill of beans As far as the big picture is concerned. I know people that are paying more dollars in debt-reduction and transportation charges than in actual hydro used.

 

[3930dave]

I know people that are paying more dollars in debt-reduction and transportation charges than in actual hydro used.

That's one of the reasons I plan to go off-grid.

After all heavy manufacturing and much of the mid-level industrial manufacturing was wiped out here, we've had massive oversupply. Pretty stark reality, esp. when you consider the amount of coal based capacity removed.

There are way too many laws being violated here, economic and otherwise, for me to be interested in remaining on-grid.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Goldstein, as usual, does a good job of recapping some of the sordid highlights:

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Liberals’ botched energy plan cost us all | GOLDSTEIN | Ontario | News | Toronto

Ontario Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault's admission Friday that the Liberals paid too much for wind and solar power won't come as any comfort to the hundreds of thousands of Ontarians now living in energy poverty as a result.

What's more, Thibeault's excuse that the Liberals were well-intentioned and only realized their mistake with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight is absurd.

Thibeault should go back and read the 2011 report by then Ontario auditor Jim McCarter about their disastrous renewable energy policies, written two years after the passage of then premier Dalton McGuinty's Green Energy Act.

McCarter noted at the time he had to start his investigation from scratch because, incredibly, the Liberal government of the day, "had not recently conducted any audit work on renewable energy initiatives".

As for the Green Energy Act, McCarter warned, the government had "created a new process to expedite the development of renewable energy by providing the Minister (of Energy) with the authority to supersede many of the government's usual planning and regulatory oversight processes ... As a result, no comprehensive business-case evaluation was done to objectively evaluate the impacts of the billion-dollar commitment. Such an evaluation would typically include assessing the prospective economic and environmental effects of such a massive investment in renewable energy on future electricity prices, direct and indirect job creation or losses, greenhouse gas emissions, and other variables."

Regarding what the Liberals called at the time the crown jewel of their green energy program, their multi-billion-dollar deal with Korea's Samsung corporation to produce wind and solar power, which has since been massively downsized, McCarter found: "No economic analysis or business case was done to determine whether the agreement ... was economically prudent and cost-effective."

McCarter found the Liberals ignored the advice of their own energy experts in deciding what public subsidies to pay wind and solar developers through their "Feed-in Tariff" (FIT) program, which could have saved the Ontario public $4 billion over 20 years.

Instead, they signed 20-year, no-cut contracts for expensive and unreliable wind and solar power that Ontario didn't need, given its massive energy surplus, and that it had to buy first, before all other forms of energy.

Thus it was no accident when, in 2015, current Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk, completing McCarter's 2011 assessment, found that the Liberals had overpaid $9.2 billion for wind and solar power and that Ontarians were paying twice the U.S. average for wind power and 3.5 times the U.S. average for solar power.

That contributed to hydro rates skyrocketing by 80% between 2004 and 2014.

Today, Ontario has the highest electricity rates in Canada, according to a 2016 Hydro Quebec study of major Canadian cities.

In fairness, Thiebeault wasn't the minister when these decisions were being made.

And if the Liberals want to do an eleventh-hour, half-baked mea culpa now because they finally realize public fury over hydro rates could lead to their political demise in next year's election, that's up to them.

But let's not kid the troops about what happened here.

The truth is Ontarians are today stuck with outrageous electricity bills in part because the Liberals pursued reckless and spendthrift policies on renewable energy that everyone from their own energy experts to two auditors general, warned them to avoid.

***************************************************************************************************

About as responsible (and predictable) an outcome as giving junkies the keys to a pharmacy.....

Rgds, D.

 

[Looking4new]

Even if we kick the liberals to the curb and bring in either the cons or ndp, they wont change the cash cow the liberals started.

 

[3930dave]

Even if we kick the liberals to the curb and bring in either the cons or ndp, they wont change the cash cow the liberals started.

Your tag says it all.

My long-term goal is to be off-grid, regardless of who gets elected.

Rgds, D.

 

[dmccarty]

...

My long-term goal is to be off-grid, regardless of who gets elected.

Rgds, D.

And if many people join you and get off the grid, it makes the financials of the power grid that much worse. I would assume you could use tax credits to move off the grid and that the tax credits were created by the same people who made this mess? If that is true, it is ironically funny.

What is criminal about this mess is that it does not seem the people who created this mess can be prosecuted criminally...

Later,
Dan

 

[buickanddeere]

The government will make off grid impractical with $$$ fees, licenses, taxes and inspections. Some off griders have been forced to connect to water, sewer and power no matter if they use them or not.

 

[Zerk]

I work in energy industry, in US. Being off grid is typically foolish. Years to recoup cost, by then you may have maintenance costs.

The advantage of being on grid, besides cheaper, is you have power all the time. At night and when wind doesn't blow.

Being off grid is either a novelty, or necessity.

 

[Zerk]

The government will make off grid impractical with $$$ fees, licenses, taxes and inspections. Some off griders have been forced to connect to water, sewer and power no matter if they use them or not.

This has happened in US as utilities come to town. This really pisses me off a great deal. The arguement I suppose is it lowers the cost for everyone else and you are part of the town. But forcing someone to buy something really irks. I live outside of city limits. I don't want to be told to cut my grass.

 

[3930dave]

This has happened in US as utilities come to town. This really pisses me off a great deal. The arguement I suppose is it lowers the cost for everyone else and you are part of the town. But forcing someone to buy something really irks. I live outside of city limits. I don't want to be told to cut my grass.

Best choice is an unincorporated township, for what we are discussing here.

Rgds, D.