Canadian energy issues can be hard to navigate in the political world without being equipped with a technical background in how energy is generated and used. Here is the second article of the Energy Literacy series, to bring some engineering knowledge, as well as perspective, to these Canadian energy issues.

With the environment being a focal topic in federal politics, and particularly in Ontario politics now also, it’s time to have a conversation about how a province’s electricity system actually functions. We hear news stories about justifications such as Germany achieving having been able to meet all of their electricity demands by 100% renewable energy. We even hear claims that Calgary Transit is powered 100% by wind power (nevermind the fact that only the C-Train is powered by wind and buses are fueled by diesel instead, but that’s another topic), so what’s holding us back from a green energy revolution? As a cleantech enthusiast, I do find it amazing to see advancements being made in renewable energy, but there’s still something stopping us from being able to abruptly switch over to 100% renewables. Moreover, there are a few things holding us back from the implementation of more renewable energy while keeping electricity reliable and affordable.

Floodgates of Grand Falls Generating Station, where 66 megawatts of baseload electricity for New Brunswick is generated

First, let’s start off with an important definition, as defined by the Independent Electricity Supply Operator (IESO):

“System capacity is the maximum electric power output (or equivalent reduction in load) that can contribute to the total system peak demand. The total system capacity available to the Ontario system must be able to satisfy the expected peak demand plus a reserve requirement.”

The electricity capacity of a country or province is generally made up of a variety of energy sources. Capacity is different from the actual electricity supply used in that energy systems are not providing 100% of the electricity they are capable of all the time. For example, nuclear power and wind power account for 35% and 12%, respectively, of capacity in Ontario. However, the energy supply for both is around 60% from nuclear and 2% from wind because of nuclear power plants providing closer to their capacity compared to wind (More real-time data on energy supply and demand in Ontario can be found here). So, with the knowledge that our energy generating systems don’t operate at full-capacity all the time, let’s also discuss how flexible energy sources are for meeting our energy demands on a daily basis.

In Ontario, nuclear power, as well as hydroelectric, make up the bulk of what is referred to as ‘baseload electricity.” This baseload provides an abundance of electricity to serve Ontario’s needs overall, but the fact is that electricity demand varies over the day, and measures are taken to meet what is referred to ‘peak demand.” What fossil fuels have above renewables, and even nuclear, is their flexibility. You can’t force the sun to shine or the wind to blow on demand, but you can crank up a coal-fired plant to meet peak demand. This may not be the ideal case for environmentalists, but it’s how we are currently handling a large energy demand while reducing emissions for now.

Why not just have plenty of renewable supply available, and just not use all of it when the demand is down? Because it costs an incredible amount of money to build and operate these plants. To handle the issue of a surplus of electricity being used in Ontario and exported, we’ve had wind turbines not turning on windy days, and cases of nuclear reactors simply “venting off” heat, rather than using it for electrical generation. Ontario blew about $1 billion in clean energy (nuclear and renewables) because of this oversupply of energy in 2016 alone, a 58% increase from 2015 of clean energy wasted in Ontario. As I discussed in a previous blog post, there is also an environmental cost to installing renewable energy sources all around, as the raw materials for them aren’t made up of sunshine and rainbows as some environmentalists would like to think.

So now, what about storage to address this issue? Why don’t we just use electricity storage as a means of storing our 100% renewable energy during off-peak hours, and then release it when we do need it. In 2016, long-term storage was even cited as an area of consideration in an advisory document to the Minister of Energy. Quite simply, the technology is just not there, nor cost effective, at least not yet.

Here’s an intro on energy storage, with information from a report done by the IESO in 2016. To start, there are three types of energy storage being explored:

• Type 1: Taking electricity from the grid, storing it, then re-injecting the electricity back into the grid. The amount of electricity re-injected into the grid is lower than the original amount, due to the fact that there will be electrical energy losses with any storage system. Battery storage is the most commonly known method of storage, but others include flywheels, compressed air, and pumped hydroelectric.
• Type 2: Withdrawing electricity from the grid for storage, but instead of re-injecting it back into the grid, the energy stored is used by the host storage facility for functions such as space heating or cooling.
• Type 3: Once again, taking electricity from the grid, but converting it into a different type of energy for a specific purpose. A well-known application of this is the use of surplus electricity for electric cars. Hydrogen generation is another emerging technology we might see more of!

Some other key takeaway points from the report include:

• The amount of electricity a storage facility can store is limited
• The amount of electricity can inject back into the grid is also limited, especially if a storage facility’s store is empty
• Not all the electricity stored may be returned to the grid, as there are energy losses associated with storage, such as leakages
• While Type 1 and Type 2 can offset some of the need for natural gas plants to ‘ramp up’ during times of peak demand (an energy requirement that can be as high as 10, 000 MW in Ontario), the need for natural gas cannot be fully displaced by them at this point
• Energy storage can be of tremendous benefit to electricity system, though to really optimize how reliable and efficient the electricity system is, energy storage should be targeting specific services

For anybody interested in learning more, I highly encourage reading the fully 40-page technical report on energy storage. There is a lot of potential for energy storage, so one has to wonder why it isn’t included in more of the energy policy talks. Unfortunately, it seems like talking about the efficiency of an electricity supply system isn’t as sexy as some of the more well-known subject matters in energy and the environment these days, such as carbon taxes and large wind power projects. The issue is that energy policy seems to been driven lately by trying to appear environmentally friendly, rather than striving for means to truly address the supply-and-demand quandary.

So sorry, getting off fossil fuels won’t be feasible until we can solve the supply-demand problem. Just because an electricity reports having 100% of its electricity from renewable sources at a given point in time doesn’t mean that it is off fossil fuels entirely. For any jurisdiction, not just Ontario, if we truly want a shift to cleaner energy sources, we first need a shift to conversations about what energy infrastructure needs to be in place to make that happen (as opposed to just dumping wind turbines everywhere like the Liberals have favoured). As a final point, while not everyone may understand what some of the numbers behind energy engineering may entail, I’m sure we can all agree that $1 billion worth of clean energy wasted in 2016 is an extremely troubling number indeed.

Disclaimer: Story of a Tory is in no way affiliated with the Conservative Party of Canada or any other political party, be it federal or provincial. The views of each author are independent of all other authors.