Skate where the puck is…

Skate where the puck is going!

 

Most of the world is abandoning expensive, dangerous nuclear. Our nuclear plants will become  white elephants. They have already driven our electricity prices up to levels people are not happy with. The planet is moving to clean, safe renewable energy (RE). It is getting cheaper every year. With 20 year fixed price contracts the prices we will pay in the coming decades will seem reasonable to our children.

 

We must invest in new smart electricity systems that allow us to use our resources intelligently. The essential elements of a smart energy system are:

 

1. recognize that greater efficiency can be gained by considering the energy system as an integrated  whole, ie include heat, transport and electricity in integrated  planning.  The classic example of this smart thinking is with district heating systems. Burn sustainably produced fuel to generate electricity, use the waste heat through district heating systems to heat whole neighbourhoods.

 

2.The LTEP  should focus its RE purchases on community -based  providers such as municipalities, public not-for-profits like universities, churches and co-operatives. Local development of our renewable resources such as solar , wind and especially biogas will raise levels of citizen engagement in the system that provides their own electricity. Some of the profits to ownership will stay right in the local communities.  Instead of resistance we'll see community support for this direction.

 

3. Integrate the LTEP planning process with the Climate Action Plan.

 

4. We need to be developing pilot energy storage systems, not just centralized but also right where people use electricity. This will help overcome the supply  limitations of somewhat intermittent RE. Biogas will play an important role here as it is a dispatchable source of energy.

 

5 Emphasize energy efficiency or conservation,

 

There are two ways we can spend less money on energy costs.

 

One, prices could, somehow, perhaps be lowered But we know that the cheapest is not always the best. We don't want to burn more fossil fuels because we care about our planet's future. When past governments have frozen Hydro prices, utilities failed to make necessary investments in modernizing or even maintaining distribution and transmission infrastructure. We know where that led us... right where we now have to invest to catch up with infrastructure investments.

 

Two.  We can lower our energy bills by consuming less energy. For example if cars get better fuel economy even if prices of fuel rise we can spend less on energy. Better even is switching to electric and cutting energy costs massively.

 

Or if we live in houses that are much better insulated, ideally, zero-energy use houses, energy costs for home heating will become almost insignificant.

 

Obviously the best way to control energy costs is to reduce energy usage through improving efficiency.

 

6. Wintergreen Co-op  supports cap and trade pricing of carbon emissions as long as the revenues are not simply ploughed into general government revenues. They should be used to help people reduce their energy costs by reducing their usage. Lower income people should not suffer from Cap n' Trade auction fees. Part of the revenue should be used for assisting lower-income folks with the increases in cost.  If you believe in a market -based system, sending appropriate price signals is a good way to move consumers away from excessive carbon emissions.

 

7. Review Hydro One rules around RE generation to facilitate and promote more distributed RE generation. For example Hydro One should permit more embedded generation on the distribution system. There are many households that would  like to instal a net metering solar system but HO won't permit it because they say we've exceeded the 7% limit on embedded generation! Investigate why European utilities can function with 15% as the cap on distributed generation.

 

8, Plan to  replace the dirty natural gas used right now with "green natural gas" produced from renewable sources such as biogas or methane produced form surplus electricity. Se Denmark's experience for this.

 

9. Change the net-metering program to pay prices that appropriately reflect the value of solar electricity that is produced during the times of peak demand when spot prices are highest.

 

10. Develop programs for collective net metering so that residents who would like to participate in RE production, but are unable to produce directly could become involved through community groups such as co-ops

 

11. Reframe the Community Energy Planning exercises to focus on integrating with the Climate action Plan by focusing on distributed safe, clean, sustainable energy in our communities.

 

[Original Comment ID: 207184]