According to the Independent Electricity System Operator’s (IESO) 2024 Annual Planning Outlook, one-quarter of Ontario’s electricity supply in 2030 will be produced by burning fossil gas – up from 4% in 2017.
To add insult to injury, the IESO is asking the federal government to establish emission caps which will allow the gas plants’ greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution in 2035 to be 5.2 times greater than their 2017 level. In addition, it is asking the Government of Canada to allow the gas plants to continue to operate until 2050. That is, the Ford Government wants to take 25 years to phase-out gas despite the fact that the McGuinty and Wynne Governments were able to phase-out dirty coal in less than 12 years.
Fortunately, we have much cleaner and lower cost options to keep our lights on. As our new report explains, we can phase-out gas power by 2035 by tripling wind and solar power and by investing in energy efficiency and storage.
Not only would this be a recipe for quickly reducing emissions, it would also save us money. The IESO itself acknowledges that it is paying only 1.6 cents a kilowatt-hour (kWh) for efficiency measures, which is a far cry from the projected 24.4 cents per kWh cost of power from new nuclear reactors. Similarly, new wind and solar + storage can supply power at half the cost of new nuclear and new gas-fired peaker plants. Storage can, of course, take many forms, from stationary batteries and thermal storage to EV batteries and Quebec’s waterpower reservoirs.
Instead of stoking climate fires over the next ten years by ramping up gas, we could be lifting the province’s baffling moratorium on offshore wind in the Great Lakes. The strong and steady winds that blow across the four massive lakes that border Ontario could supply enough power to meet all of Ontario’s current electricity needs. Why are we ignoring this vital resource while banking on polluting gas and GE-Hitachi’s high-cost, experimental boiling water reactors which have still not been approved by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission?
Ontario is headed in the wrong direction. But we don’t have to go down this high-carbon, high-cost path. We have a choice. It’s time to remap our electricity future.
Please send a message to Premier Ford, Energy Minister Todd Smith, NDP Leader Marit Stiles, Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner and your MPP – ask them to commit to tripling wind and solar and doubling efficiency by 2035.