Toronto Star
October 24, 2016
Jack Gibbons
Let’s buy power from Quebec
Re: Wynne making a play for more Quebec power? Oct. 20
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is asking the Ontario Energy Board for a 180 per cent rate increase to pay for the continued operation of its Pickering Nuclear Station and its $12.8 billion Darlington Re-Build Project. In other words, OPG wants to raise its price of nuclear power to 16.8 cents per kWh by 2026.
It doesn’t make sense to pay 16.8 cents for nuclear power when Hydro Quebec is exporting electricity to the U.S. for 3 cents per kWh.
For a capital cost of $2 billion Hydro One can upgrade its transmission system to enable Ontario to obtain up to 27 per cent of its annual electricity supply needs from Quebec. That’s a fraction of the cost of re-building four aging reactors at the Darlington Station and keeping North America’s fourth-oldest nuclear station running in Pickering, where it is surrounded by 2 million people.
It is time for Premiers Kathleen Wynne and Phillippe Couillard to end electricity separatism and negotiate a mutually beneficial long-term electricity supply agreement that will lower our electricity bills.
Jack Gibbons, chair, Ontario Clean Air Alliance, Toronto