The En-Pro Blog

As many of us took part in Earth Hour, this past weekend, it’s clear it is a vitally important global event that raises critical awareness of the many issues pertaining to global climate change, and the need for us all to be pro-active.

However, carried out on a 'low peak demand day' actually cost Ontario businesses money if they participated and shifted load to another day.

If Earth Hour was instead held on a high demand day during the week, then the big polluters that use fossil fuels to make power would not be needed and we'd actually be saving those fuels from entering the environment.

But during the day, Saturday March 28, 2009, and in the evening, all we really saved was environmentally friendly power that was likely generated by hydro and nuclear.

Earth Hour is a tremendous step forward, but we’re not getting the whole picture, here in Ontario – and while it’s a great event – it’s not as effective as it is capable of becoming.

http://tinyurl.com/d8bsqb

The above links to a report showing the hourly electricity prices all day on Saturday. As you will see, for most hours, including Earth Hour, they were negative. That is because the hydro and nuclear generators bid in to the market with negative prices to ensure their capacity was used. So, in short, anyone who pays the hourly Ontario energy prices and elected to cut their usage during Earth Hour, lost money, as they would have received payment for power actually used. (Distribution transmission and other regulated costs would still be applied).

A bit of background on Ontario electricity pricing:

Each hour, generators bid into the market with their capacity. The lowest bids are taken first, so, to ensure a generator's power gets used, they have to bid in competitively.

It's difficult for Hydro and nuclear generators to reduce capacity, so they always want to make sure their generated power gets used. On Saturday, demands overall in the province were very low, so generators actually bid in to the market with very low prices, and some generators, most likely the hydro electric and nuclear, actually bid in with negative prices.

Those negative bids ended up setting the price 19 out of 24 hours, including Earth Hour.

So, if a consumer who pays the hourly energy price, elected to be a good corporate citizen, and shift some load to another time, thus not using that power during Earth Hour, they may well have had to pay for the power, rather than receive payment for using the power. It's like being given money to take the commodity off the supplier's hands.

By: John Kiemele, Vice President