Scheer: Ontario could go 100 per cent renewable
I had the opportunity to chat yesterday with German legislator Hermann Scheer, who is the chief architect of the renewable-energy law that has turned Germany into a wind and solar leader. In fact, it’s now called “Scheer’s Law.”
Scheer said Ontario could easily follow Germany’s path, and is in even better shape to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy on its electricity system. The reason: 7,000 megawatts of hydroelectric that already exists.
Scheer said the province currently uses that hydropower, along with nuclear, to provide baseload power. Load-following and peaking is provided by coal and natural gas, balanced off against renewables such as wind. As long as the current structure is kept, wind and solar will always remain an appendage to the system and self-limiting.
His suggestion? Turn the whole system on its head. He said hydroelectric, which is highly flexible and can start-stop much faster than natural gas, should be reserved for load-following, peaking and shadowing vast amounts of wind and solar. This would be combined with biomass/bioenergy and combined heat and power, conservation, demand-management and energy-efficiency programs, as well as investments in smart-grid technologies and storage. (See story in Toronto Star here)
It’s an interesting idea. One of the main criticisms of wind by anti-wind folks is that you need inefficient single-cycle natural gas plants to shadow the wind, which in some cases can offset any of the benefits of wind itself. By ditching this model and using hydropower (and hydro storage) instead of natural gas, you can get the full benefits of wind. As Scheer told me, “The combination of hydropower and wind power is perfect, absolutely perfect.”
I open this up for discussion. Curious to hear different view on this idea. The issue I would raise is the way power is typically brought online — from cheapest to most expensive. It’s why we run nuclear and hydroelectric as baseload, then coal, then natural gas. This model would have to change, though I’m not sure how that would be accomplished.
Tyler Hamilton is a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
December 18th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
http://www.nanotopblog.com/index.cfm/2008/12/18/Outlook-for-Thin-Film-Photovoltaics-in-09#comments
December 18th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
This kind of thinking would work better in Quebec than Ontario. Much of Ontario’s hydroelectric does not have the water shed storage capacity required for this kind of plan. Quebec’s system is much more flexible in that they are able to “pond” huge amounts of their energy. I am all for renewable power however from reading this it is obvious that Hermann Scheer has no intimate knowledge of Ontario’s power system make-up.
December 18th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Mr Sheer neglects one thing – a large part of the hydro resource is run of river with little or no water storage. That capacity is indeed base loaded – with good reason. To use it for regulation would result in spilling – and wasted renewable energy.
The hydro plants that do have even small amounts of storage are already used extensively for peak load use. The IESO website provides data that one can download showing hourly generation. Many of the hydro plants on smaller rivers are shut down for much of the day, running only during peak periods. This is the energy that Mr Sheer wants to use to back up the wind and renewable generation – and I believe that most of it is already used for providing peak capacity.
December 18th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I wish I’d mentioned that on my call with him. I guess it makes little sense to spill cheap clean electricity so that you can get more expensive clean energy, as one of my editors told me. That said, I wonder if small amounts of spillage would be acceptable if it provided the flexibility needed to manage vast amounts of wind and solar power (which would offer some baseload characteristics)?Combine that with demand-response, and perhaps even hydrogen production of hydro that would otherwise be spilled, I wonder if the model could work?
Just throwing this out there. Please don’t take it too seriously.
December 18th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I don’t know the specifics for Ontairo, but typically, where Hydorpower is flexible, it is already used for peaking, just as in Ontario. In the US, however, much of the constraint is due to water law, and required flows rather than reservoir size, so there is some potential for imporvement, even if it is a legal nightmare.
The constraint you mention about how power is dispatched is not a problem, however, since utility planners usually consider opportunity cost, as well as running costs. The opportunity cost of using stored hydro when electricity is cheap is that you will not be able to use it when power is expensive, so which is a trade no rational business would make.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:25 am
The idea of making hydrogen with surplus wind energy – or night surplus energy is probably a good idea – but the idea of using that energy to displace natural gas is even better. Ontario exports electricity to Quebec most nights at prices that are less than about 2 cents/kWh. At the same time, the province burns large amounts of natural gas for heat – that costs about 5-6 cents for the same amount of delivered heat as a kWh of electricity. The energy is exported because the IESO cannot reduce capacity without incurring more costs (steam plants) or spilling water at hydro plants.
Making hydrogen will be great in the future – when there is a market – but Ontario could reduce exports and use the energy at home to displace natural gas and GHG emissions NOW… When unexpected wind blows at night, it too could be used to displace gas instead of exporting it at low prices as is done in Denmark.
Most people look at the provinces with hydro storage (BC, Manitoba and Quebec) as lucky… Ontario has access to large amounts of natural gas storage that can be used in almost the same way…
December 19th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
A better option than low efficiency gas burning plants for load following is cogeneration – that is high efficiency gas (or other fuels) providing double service producing power when needed for the grid and providing heat to buildings and industries. It can also provide baseload electricity if needed. This is a huge untapped resource in Ontario, and is extremely widely used throughout Europe, Japan and California. It is largely untapped here because it would be a very serious competitor to nuclear power and that lobby is far stronger.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Last January, when we launched our five year plan to shift Ontario onto the conserver society path, we included two challenge target (in consultation with our colleagues) related to Ontario’s electricity load: 1. Ontario peak demand will be 20,000 megawatts by 2020; and 2. We will generate 5,000 MW of renewable power by 2012 and 20,000 MW by 2020.
Put the conservation and the renewable targets together and you get a 100% renewable scenario, as Scheer says.
From our work this year, and from our recent Conservation Summit, I’ve come to the conclusion that Ontario has a serious capacity deficit with respect to conservation: we lack the high level coordination, the major economic instruments (pricing and incentives), the physical infrastructure (from wires to bike lanes), the economic infrastructure (green and local jobs) and the social infrastructure (effective community-focused support programs) required for an orderly transition to a conserver society model.
We have our work cut out for us, that’s for sure. The one thing that gives me hope is the sheer (no pun intended) numbers of individuals, groups and businesses that are making a serious commitment to green leadership. Thanks Tyler, and keep it up everyone!
December 19th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
The fuel for the majority of Ontario’s hydroelectric plants comes up river from the tailrace (exit) of another plant (sometimes hours or days away). “Spilling” water upstream causes inefficiencies further down the chain. Take a look at OPG’s web site in the River System’s area http://www.opg.com/safety/water/river/ and see how it all works together.
December 19th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Great discussion, folks. Thanks for contributing and enlightening me a bit.
December 21st, 2008 at 12:14 am
Anyone know anything about Eden Energy and this Hythane mix (20%Hydrogen80%NG)?
http://www.hythane.com/upload/editor/File/EH_Release_BW.pdf
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:22 am
A most interesting discussion! And, after reading the comments here, I see the many problems with this idea- but when I first read it, I was struck with the simplicity of it- of just looking at things from a new perspective. So, even if using Hydro to ballance out Wind is not going to work, at least in a lot of places, hopefully this type of thinking-outside-the-box can open up some new avenues of thought to find new methods of utilizing renewables in a way that does not negatively impact our power needs. Good article and discussion, Tyler;-)
January 11th, 2009 at 8:29 am
It is simply not true that you need simple cycel gas turbines for large amounts of wind on a grid. Combined cycle gas turbines have ramp up times of less than 10 minutes – wind can be predicted with very high accuracy on a timescale of hours so even if single cycle gas turbines are used for the period in between it would only ‘waste’ a tiny amount of additional natural gas compared to the base case. In practice, grid control electronics and short term energy storage may be more useful for this purpose, but we’re not talking about large amounts of fossil fuel in the first place.
January 11th, 2009 at 8:35 am
One other thing. I’d like to point out the potential for underground pumped hydro storage. There is a huge potential pumped hydro storage resource in the form of abandoned mines deep underground. Many large abandoned mine shafts at reasonable depth would be suitable as lower resevoir for hydro storage, with the upper resevoir in an (artificial) lake on the surface. Since the lower resevoir already exists, the cost could be very low. Something worth investigating I think, if you have the time, Tyler. I couldn’t find good data on the suitability of certain rock/mine types (eg limestone mines, salt mines etc.) and on the amount of abandoned mines available.