Dear Minister Thibeault,   …

Dear Minister Thibeault,

 

I am a founder, director, member and investor in Oxford Community Energy Co-operative (18 MW Wind), Sustainability Brant Community Energy Co-op (~1 MW solar PV), ZooShare Biogas Co-op (500 kW Biogas), Sustainability Ontario Community Energy Co-op and windfarm owner in Germany.

 

I strongly believe that Ontario must change course now to be 100% powered by distributed renewable energy by 2050 and has to start planning for and actually decommission its nuclear fleet starting with the  Pickering plant right now to ensure that we will be able to achieve this goal.

 

1. We need a comprehensive and inclusive plan

 

From any Long-Term Energy Plan one expects it to be based on thorough research of the available and most promising options for a sustainable, reliable and socially acceptable future energy system. The plan thus has to include:

 

•full lifecycle and risk evaluation of the present and most promising future technologies, •firm goals, actions and timelines and milestones

 

•sensitivity and risk analysis

 

•be comprehensive and include all forms of energy, i.e. electrical, heating and cooling, transportation, industrial processes

 

•be based on comparative models and scenarios for the most viable options wrt achieving overall environmental sustainability and lowest possible GHG emission.

 

The current base for planning provided by the IESO, the Ontario Planning Outlook, falls short in almost all of these requirements for a solid technical analysis on which such long term decisions should be made.

 

Although the OPA does, somewhat fuzzily, assume that in the future there will be more distributed generation in Ontario, it barely touches the actual important questions (when, where, how much, how deeply embedded?) and displays no understanding of what this means for our current centralized system or even a future integrated energy system.

 

The OPO perpetuates and builds all it assumptions and projections on the baseload paradigm, which has long been proven to be a myth. All present research into sustainable energy systems indicates that loads can be easily followed and no baseload bulk generation is needed if smart grid technology, distributed renewable generation and storage are implemented.

 

Further the future LTEP must not underestimates the effects a successful implementation of the Climate Change Action Plan will have, past projections for energy demand and penetration of new technologies have always tended to do so.

 

2. Conservation is the cheapest form of energy

 

To fight climate change and reduce our environmental footprint, Ontario’s next energy plan must make conservation and efficiency the first priority for all energy decisions. This principle has to apply to our buildings, institutions, industries and transportation systems.

 

A recent government study* showed we have the potential to cost-effectively reduce electricity demand by 30% by 2035.   The government should pursue and promote all cost-effective conservation measures immediately and work together with the many NGO and companies that already provide expertise and mature technological solutions to homeowners and businesses to conserve energy and reduce their carbon footprint.

 

3. Economic and societal opportunities

 

Ontario can continue to be a leader in the green energy transition and seize the economic opportunities that come with this leadership. Phasing out coal and increasing energy from renewable sources was a courageous first step. But we need to go further and have to reduce GHG from all sectors, specifically buildings, transportation and the industry.  Recent polls have shown that Ontarians are willing to follow this path, it needs your commitment and will to clearly and transparently communicate the message to all stakeholders including those that are perceived as standing to loose from an energy transition (i.e. OPG, Bruce Power, Power Works Union etc.).

 

Long term energy planning provides this opportunity of paving a new way and missing out on it can very soon have costly consequences for us all.

 

4. The Energy Transition is a bottom up change project

 

If the future of our energy system is to have Ontarian’s Social License is must be a distributed system, which will and must empower community groups, LDC, Municipalities as well as First Nations & Métis communities to become the owners and operators of the new energy assets. Government policies like the Feed-In-Tariff program have allowed communities to participate in and benefit from renewable energy production, which has led to a number of important and tangible benefits, these program should be continued and streamlined to become the accelerator for the rapid build up of the integrated distributed system to replace nuclear power in the required time frame.

 

5. Reliability, safety and affordability are paramount

 

Our current heavy reliance on a bulk energy supply from three large nuclear plants has systemic reliability and safety issues. Decreasing our reliance on nuclear power and increasing distributed generation will lead to a more flexible, more cost-effective energy supply in the long run.

 

Despite massive and costly efforts to train for the upcoming refurbishment at Darlington, these projects should be seen as “Opening the Pandora’s Box”. Given the recently revealed negligent inspection practice of the CNSC it can be safely assumed that time and cost overruns attributed to unforeseen safety concerns that need to be addressed are soon coming. Locking Ontario into a nuclear future with continuously increasing population density in the vicinity of Pickering and Darlington is irresponsible and cannot be justified by saving jobs in an industry that is in decline worldwide. The exportability of Candu reactor expertise is steadily shrinking due to the massive investments required compared to alternative energy sources. The long awaited renaissance of nuclear power should be considered wishful thinking of those resisting the change because of their highly vested interests.

 

Thank you very much for taking the time to consider and review public input into Ontario’s next Long Term Energy Plan.

 

Sincerely,

 

Dr. Ingo König

 

[Original Comment ID: 206917]