Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Wind For Wind

CANwea’s latest news release deserves some additional information.
February 14th saw market prices driven down to as low as $21.81/MW, and only peaking at $34.61, as wind had one of those productive days that occasionally happens.  Exports climbed to average 1333MW per hour, as wind averaged 1058MW per hour during the weekday with the lowest Ontario demand  since January 3rd (the Monday taken as a long weekend by many - and treated as off-peak under TOU pricing).
On February 9th wind energy reached a record level of 1296MW – which could have powered more than 300,000 homes because homes aren’t using much electricity at 2 o’clock in the morning, when the record was set.
Wind is making a significant and growing contribution to Ontario’s electricity supply as it’s intermittent spikes continue to drive exports, and the HOEP market price is increasingly correlated directly to wind output.  This is having the affect of cheapening the value of the output from Bruce nuclear units (see comments on Full Year section of Electricity Results in CAMECO news release), and has somehow managed to drive down the price of Ontario’s cherished hydroelectric generation assets.
Canwea is a lobby group for one method of collecting government subsidies. 

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