By the time the next provincial election rolls around Ford will have spent over $54 billion hiding and protecting the Conservatives failed hydro deregulated electricity market scheme, never dealing with the problem.
This is money that clearly should have been invested in healthcare and combating the climate crisis. The magnitude of the infrastructure build required to transition over to electric vehicles is mind boggling. It will never happen under a for-profit system, the people simply will not accept the stratospheric cost.
If we are going to get serious about fighting the climate crisis effectively, then the profit motive must be removed. It is time to form the Ontario Green Power Authority, the OGPA. A public company that oversees conservation measures, builds and runs green power production, transmission and distribution. Its mandate would be in the public interest and “power at-cost,” without the multiple layers of profit that now exist. Electricity is very much like water, a necessity of life. It was a terrible mistake to turn it into a for-profit commodity.
Creating a public green power company is not a radical idea. In May 2023, New York State lawmakers passed a law called the Build Public Renewables Act. This law authorizes the New York Power Authority, the largest state public power authority in the US, to build renewable energy projects and to help reach the state’s climate goals. In Europe nine of the top ten countries leading the energy transition to renewables all have one thing in common: A publicly owned renewable energy company driving the process.
In Australia, the states of Queensland and Victoria created public green power companies. The record of Public Power in Ontario is 94 years of low and stable rates. Business loves low and stable! Conservation is the cheapest, fastest and cleanest way to solve our electricity and climate change problems. Conservation measures are key and can be immediately implemented and are one tenth the cost of building expensive nuclear power plants.
There are no real conservation measures now in for-profit corporate Ontario because real conservation reduces demand, reduces the market price and reduces profits.
It is much easier to convince local people to put up windmills and solar farms if they are going to benefit from the at-cost power and local employment that will be required. More importantly, there are multiple benefits from conservation. Beyond ensuring a stable supply of electricity, an effective energy efficiency and conservation program will:
(1) Help clean up our air,
- Put us on the road to meeting our CO2 Kyoto and Paris accord targets,
- Create good paying jobs in Ontario,
- Prevent private generators from taking advantage of scarce supply to manipulate rates artificially in the electricity market
We should invest in the successful California solution. Regulate rates and institute the 20/20 plan. Cut your use by 20 per cent and we will cut your bill by another 20 per cent for 40 per cent savings. Give out LED light bulbs and give rebates for heat pumps and other measures, to make your home energy efficient. In the current affordability crisis, the public would eagerly take up these initiatives!
The prime example of why the profit motive must be removed from green power and renewables is the Green Energy Act in Ontario. It was a complete failure because it was nothing more than a license for private green energy producers to print money. As has already shown around the world, green power production and conservation go hand in hand together in a publicly built and owned green energy company. The wind blows and the sun shines for free allowing private companies to maximize profits off of that fact is ludicrous. We simply cannot allow them to sell power from private green power and renewables into their electricity market playground where rates are so easily manipulated. If there is one thing business likes, it is a stable and predictable price. Since the electricity market opened 22 years ago the price of electricity has been completely unpredictable and very unstable. Ford loves to say “Ontario is open for business”. The deregulated electricity market has been very bad for business.
The electricity market must be closed and we must finally get on the pathway of harm reduction and harm elimination.
The time for at-cost public power has come again. The public and business will never accept the inflated cost of building the massive amount of infrastructure required to transition over to electric vehicles under a for-profit system. To effectively fight the climate and affordability crisis we must form a public green energy and conservation company. Both the climate crisis and economy demand it.
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