Denbigh Townhall

Meeting of April 25, 2015

General Discussion

Wind turbine benefits:

• income for township

• income for property owners

• electricity for province

• pollution free renewable energy

• installation/construction jobs

• maintenance jobs

Wind turbine detriments:

• transfer of public funds to private corporations

• currently needs provincial subsidies to be viable

• health concerns

• impact on wildlife

• impact on property values

• impact on adjacent land owners

• power lines and possibly roads on adjacent land ( eminent domain )

Wind turbine project questions:

• Addington Highlands currently receives $1,600,000 million through the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund ( OMPF). The impact on the amount provided by the OMPF as a consequence of the potential revenue of $450,000 ( property taxes + vibrancy fund ) from wind turbines is currently unknown. Question – will there be an impact and if so how much?

• The method of conducting electricity from one turbine to another is currently unspecified. Question – what means of transmission will be used? Question – will land owners who have not signed leases be subject to eminent domain for the use of their land for transmission lines?

• Question - If the province awards the project, will the vibrancy fund money flow to the Addington Highlands municipality or will a non-profit corporation be established? All the turbines will be in municipal ward 1. Question – as a result of Ward 1 bearing all the impacts of the turbines, will Ward 1 be favoured with respect to the proceeds of the vibrancy fund?

• One publicly available lease agreement states “Lessor grants and transfers to Lessee a non-exclusive License for audio, visual, view, light, flicker, noise, shadow, vibration, air turbulence, wake, electromagnetic, electrical and radio frequency interference, and any other effects attributable to the Wind Power Facilities or activity located on the Leased Lands or on adjacent properties (“Effects License”). Question – does this clause imply that lawsuits related to “audio, visual,..., effects” are the responsibility of the lessor? ( see http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/agreement-and-lease-kerwood-wind-florida-power-and-lightfpl-energynextera/ )

• Question – are there any “hold harmless” clauses in the lease protecting the lessor?

• 70% of Addington Highlands is crown land. Question – do wind turbines on crown land provide revenue to the township or the province?

• Question - does the lease protect the lessor in cases of lessee default or backruptcy?

• Question - does the lease protect the lessor from decommissioning costs when the lease terminates?

• Question – does the wind turbine project impact the municipality's official plan? If so, who pays for amendments to the official plan?

• Question – if roads must be improved to transport the turbines, does the road standard increase? If so, does the municipality have to maintain the road at the higher, and more costly, standard?

Wind Turbine Systemic Questions

• The LRP I Contract is for twenty years. During the contract period Ontario taxpayers are, apparently, paying for both the electricity produced and the capital cost of the turbines. Question – is the foregoing correct? Question – if so, why are taxpayers not purchasing the capital equipment during the term of the contract. Question – are the pieces of capital equipment, including switchgear and transmission lines being totally written off during the term of the contract? Question – if so, is this appropriate spending of taxpayer dollars?

• Wind turbines are intermittent sources of electricity and are therefore non-dispatchable. The electricity grid requires continuous power with variable load demand. The grid must, therefore, be dispatchable. The mismatch between non-dispatchable wind generation and dispatchable grid demand means that there is an upper limit to the precentage of grid power that wind can provide. Question – what is the upper limit for wind power in Ontario? Question – is the apparent 20 year write-off period for wind capital equipment sufficient to justify its limited capacity to provide grid power?

• The proposed wind project in Addington Highlands is for 200 Megawatts of installed wind turbines. However, the wind is variable so that 200 Megawatts is not continuously available. A reasonable estimate is that an equivalent of 50 Megawatts ( capacity factor of 25% ) would be continuously available. Energy is in kilowatt-hours, not watts. The amount of energy produced yearly by a 50 megawatt generator is 50 * 24 * 365 * 1000 = 438,000,000 kilowatt-hours ( 50 megawatts * 24 hours * 365 days of the year * 1000 to convert from megawatts to kilowatts ). Wind energy is currently priced at from 11 to 14 cents per kilowatt-hour. Therefore, the yearly income ( using a middle value of 12.5 cents ) expected from the project is 438,000,000 * 0.125 = $54,750,000 per year. Over a 20 year contract the total expected revenue is $54,750,000 * 20 = $1,095,000,000. The estimated project cost is $600,000,000. Therefore, the net profit is expected to be $400,000,000 minus operating costs. If operating costs are $100,000 ( likely a high estimate ) per turbine per year, the net operating cost would be $100,000 * 100 * 20 = $200,000,000. Therefore, at the end of the contract $200,000,000 of public taxpayers dollars would have been transferred to private owners and shareholders. Question – is this an acceptable public to private transfer of dollars?

• Ontario's Long Term Energy Plan states that “Ontario will not proceed at this time with the construction of two new nuclear reactors at the Darlington Generating Station”. Refurbishment will be done at both the Darlington and Bruce sites. The Long Term Energy Plan does not go beyond twenty years in the future. Nuclear generating stations last longer than twenty years. Question – why does Ontario not look beyond twenty years when it has infrastructure that lasts longer than 20 years? Question – what is the future of nuclear generation in Ontario beyond twenty years? Wind power will never supply more than a small fraction of the currently installed nuclear capacity. Question – is the per dollar value of installed wind power cost effective given that it will never on its own replace the generating capacity of the current nuclear stations?

• Ontario's Long Term Energy Plan, firstly, only looks 20 years into the future and, secondly, assumes that the current contributions from nuclear and gas generation will be substantially the same in 20 years. However, nuclear's future is uncertain and gas is a non-renewable resource. Question - given the uncertainty surrounding nuclear and gas and given that wind will never replace more than a small fraction of the generating capacity of nuclear and gas, why is Ontario placing so much emphasis on and investing so much money in wind power genertion? Question – is wind power political posturing than avoids facing the hard realities of dealing with problematic nuclear and depleating non-renewable resources?