Ontario needs to replace 80 percent of its current generating capacity over the next 20 years, 24,000 megawatts, said Paul Shervill, Vice President of Conservation and Sector Development, Ontario Power Authority. By 2025 Ontario hopes to get 6,300 megawatts of that badly needed power from conservation efforts, he said.
He was speaking to dozens of business, municipal and academic leaders at an Opportunity Breakfast organized by NORCAT and Northern Ontario Business Tuesday morning at Cambrian College's Fontaine Bleue dining room.
The fall-out from that crisis has profound implications for northern Ontario-positive and negative, said Shervill.
OPA, an independent Ontario body charged with planning Ontario's energy future, is indicating energy prices will have to increase in order to fund the need to reduce demand. They published a report, Taking Action, recently outlining their plans to ease the electricity shortfall.
“We will be making investments of $60 billion over 10 years, $10 billion on conservation, $46 billion on new generation and $4 billion on upgrading transmission lines to carry the new capacity. That requires we will have to raise electricity rates by one percent per year above inflation over the next 15 years, the planning period we are engaged in,” said Shervill.
“It's going to cost us more but we will moving to a more safe and reliable energy system.”
Darryl Lake, executive director of NORCAT, said northern Ontario's forestry and mining companies already find electricity costs excessive.
“The second largest single user of electricity in Ontario is Xstrata here in Greater Sudbury. What delegates in this breakfast session want to know is where is the province going with electricity pricing. There are fears that prices could rise 30 percent over the near term,” said Lake.
Shervill admitted that while Ontario's current rates are competitive with New England they are more expensive than the hydro generated electricity in neighbouring Quebec and Manitoba.
However, investing in conservation is cheaper than new generation, he said.
He outlined a number of programs for small and large businesses to reduce their energy costs-some even providing free energy advice.
Shervill said Northern Ontario could supply the province much needed new generation in terms of water, wind, and solar energy.
CVRD Inco's Andy Lemay, energy analyst, said Greater Sudbury could be a leader in geothermal energy.
“I have been studying geothermal using inactive mines for years. The largest geothermal expense is drilling the holes. We have all kinds of them. The Stobie mine complex could be tapped to power College Boreal, MacDonald Cartier school and the Taxation Data Centre. We could be a world leader in geothermal,” said Lemay.
Shervill said CVRD Inco should talk to him as well as the federal government to follow up on geothermal prospects in Greater Sudbury.
