"initiating a policy review to address the question of how a commercial and industrial customer should be billed when they have a Load Displacement Generator (LDG) behind the meter."It's an important, but obscure issue I feel best explained by looking at the situation in Germany - but let's start with Tom Adams' Selfie Power (With and Without Transmission Charges):
March 31 tweet on tour of, presumably, preferred consumer CHP site |
The Ontario government has identified load-displacement generation as “conservation” and provided big businesses with massive incentives and even direct subsidies to expand investment in this type of behind-the-fence generation. A little brew-your-own power is looking like a lifeline for your business. Right?
Not so fast.
The Ontario government is instituting a rate change designed to punish those with behind-the-fence generators...
The rate change seeking to wipe out the incentive to invest in load-displacement generation but will only apply to non-preferred smaller customers.
Bruce Sharp's Linkedin post on the letter is Ontario CHP (Combined Heat and Power) at Risk ?
The primary purpose of the letter is to discuss the retail transmission treatment for CHP, with the possibility of aligning the treatment of LDC-served customers with transmission-connected customers or perhaps leaving LDC-served customers slightly worse off.Most of the commodity charge for electricity in Ontario is now in the Global Adjustment charge.
Much more ominous is the reference to the Global Adjustment (GA).
GA Class B customers with or contemplating CHP depend on avoiding this charge when they generate. Recently, the GA Class B charge has been near-stratospheric, clocking in at a simple average of $ 95/MWh for the period of Dec15 – Feb16. Meanwhile, the total net benefit of a base-loaded CHP (including the avoided GA Class B charge) ranges from approximately $ 70 - $ 85/MWh.
So, if all of a sudden the GA Class B is charged on a gross load (total load, i.e. net load + generated power) versus net load basis, CHP economics go poof. CHP as a Conservation and Demand Management (“CDM”) measure would be dead in the water