Ontario group sees C$60bn cost to move from gas generation
The Ontario Energy Association (OEA) issued a report April 14 indicating that eliminating all of the largest Canadian province’s gas-fired power generating facilities by 2030 would increase electricity costs by at least C$60bn (US$48bn).
Ontario’s gas-fired generating fleet supplies about 11,000 MW of capacity, or about a third of the province’s total, and will play an essential role over the next decade in maintaining power system reliability, the report says.
|
Advertisement: The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC) NGC’s HSSE strategy is reflective and supportive of the organisational vision to become a leader in the global energy business. |
“Maintaining these critical facilities will avoid at least a C$60bn increase in electricity costs for residential and business electricity customers across the province,” the OEA said.
And eliminating them, the report suggests, would not materially improve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the province, which has closed all of its coal-fired power stations over the past decade and has reduced GHG emissions by 85% since 2005.
“Ontario’s electricity market is cleaner than those of nearly all major developed economies and will remain so over the next decade,” the report notes, adding that the province’s electricity system contributes only 2.3% of the province’s GHG emissions.
The OEA commissioned the report in response to growing voices in the province suggesting that Ontario needs to move off gas in its electricity system if it, and Canada, are to meet their respective net-zero aspirations by 2050.
“OEA members strongly support the federal government’s objective to achieve a net zero economy by 2050,” OEA CEO Vince Brescia said. “The OEA’s intention is to leverage our expertise to assist governments and agencies to find the optimal pathway to NZ2050 while ensuring that our customers maintain access to affordable and reliable energy.”
Virtually none of the infrastructure that would be needed to replace that 11,000 MW of gas-fired generating capacity exists today, nor is there transmission infrastructure in place to import hydroelectricity from Quebec, even if that province was in a position to send surplus power to Ontario.
And nothing from the renewable portfolio of generating technologies can provide the same level of peaking capacity and system reliability as natural gas, the OEA says.