Oh, How The Wind Blows

Remember that really windy day we had last week (November 24th)? What a great day that must have been for wind energy huh? Yeah, about that... it wasn't.

Last Monday was one of the windiest days in recent memory and oh boy were Ontario's wind turbines moving. The problem was, they were producing way more power than was needed. This over excess of power ended up costing Ontario taxpayers $10 Million for just that one day.

According to Wind Concerns Ontario, the province generated over 45,000 megawatt hours of electricity that day. Because we didn't need that electricity, we ended up exporting 20,000 of that it to Quebec, Michigan and New York state. But we sold it off at a LOSS, just over $11 per megawatt hour. To put that in perspective, all that wind produced power is worth, $135/MWh... that's a boatload of money lost.

The problem with wind power is the wind blows mainly at night, but a majority of energy demand is during the day. So, power is being produced at a time when it's not needed. Because of this, power is sold off to neighbouring provinces or even nearby american states at bargain bin prices. To make up for this loss, prices during the day are artificially high. So, we are paying extra high electricity prices during the day, to make up for the power we're not using at night.

Once power is on the grid, it has to go somewhere. As of now, it's very difficult to store power for use later. The only method I'm aware of involves large tanks of compressed air underground. This of course is not cheap and sounds very unsafe. Talk about a disaster waiting to happen.

The wind is certainly blowing with Green energy. A report in the Globe and Mail this week suggested that Green energy jobs have eclipsed jobs in the oil industry. Do you know one person working in the green energy industry?... I don't. It's easy to proclaim something a success when it's subsidized at the expense of everyone else. The green energy industry only exists because of millions in government bailouts handed out every year.