Conserve our electricity

The Toronto Sun
May 16, 2008
Jack Gibbons

Conserve our electricity

It's that time of year. You've filed your taxes and wonder where all the money went. When it comes to our electricity system, Ontario taxpayers may be wondering the same thing 15 years from now.

The throbbing between the temples is already starting as the bills roll in from the Bruce Nuclear refurbishment project, which is already running anywhere from $350-$650 million over budget.

Of course, it was all going to be different this time. Never again would we see a nuclear project running years late and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. Unfortunately, despite claims the rebuilt Pickering Unit 1 would produce power at 85% capacity for the next 12 years, this reactor operated at a dismal 39% of its capacity in 2007.

But what is really hard to fathom is while it is "damn the torpedoes" on nuclear spending, the attitude toward almost zero risk conservation and demand management programs is pretty much the exact opposite. For example, despite huge potential, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) and local utilities have managed to get less than 2% of potential participants to sign up for peaksaver programs that turn down air conditioners in peak electricity demand periods.

And while the sky's the limit on spending for nuclear power, the OPA is arbitrarily capping demand management programs that can deliver peak power savings cheaply and efficiently.

DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS

The premier talks a great game when it comes to energy conservation. And the people of Ontario are more than ready to do their part. But when the government is driving, it is one foot on the conservation brake and the other foot to the floor on nuclear.

Which is puzzling since the international track record of conservation and demand management programs is excellent. Places like New York State and California see conservation and demand management as "low hanging fruit" and have policies to tap every kilowatt they can get from these sources before building new generating plants.

What the Ontario government seems to have missed is you can't have a conservation culture if you don't make it more rewarding -- and easier -- to conserve energy than to build new power plants.

Where Ontario has been a leader is in committing to eliminate the use of dirty coal to produce electricity. The easiest way to ensure we make our coal phase-out deadline is to ensure we have done everything reasonable under the sun to reduce electricity use. By simply hooking up every residential and small commercial air conditioner in the province to a peaksaver device, for example, we could eliminate the need for half the power produced by the massive Nanticoke Generating Station. No cost overruns, no waste, small budget, huge impact -- what doesn't the government get about this?

Over to you, Premier McGuinty.