I have been arguing since the Trump drummed up drama that the most important strategic action Canada can take is to start electrifying parts of the 401 within Toronto in the manner of the German E-Highway, so that buses and trucks can connect to over head wires above the right hand lane. This would allow trucks making delivery runs to operate with relatively small batteries while charging on the high density corridors. Southern Ontario is profoundly dependent on oil shipped through Michigan, and this would have a huge impact on reducing the demand for Diesel, which is the most essential industrial RPP. If there is a sudden revoking of Line 5's permit, this would go a long way to insulating the economic fall out. That's beside obvious air quality and emissions benefits.
From a core net work in Toronto, this could be copied in Ottawa and Montreal, and then along the 401 connecting them with something like a 1:1 ratio of overhead wire and wireless sections, so that the entire corridor can rely on electrified transportation.
The sad part is, it would have been good policy to build Energy East, it would also be good policy to encourage a massive increase in the presence of batteries in power substations, as an alternative to growing capacity in transmission corridors, and building more gas-fired peaker plants. The broad adoption and use of said batteries with grid-supporting inverters to aid in frequency stability of the grid. The massive adoption and rollout of battery storage in homes and substations can fundamentally alter the economics of wind and solar.
Need to adopt an electricity pricing policy that would allow people in effect act to effectively arbitrage electricity on a time of day basis. The famous Duck curve would quickly vanish as an issue if a decent portion of households had 30 kWh of storage, where they could buy power when there was a surplus and sell when there was a shortage. It should be very feasible for the grid to transmit on the same wires that carry power, with second-by-second pricing that qualified users could then respond to, by either buying power at times of excess supply or selling at times where supply was falling short.
We need to expand that significantly so it becomes a significant portion of the grid capacity for an hour. Given our generation capacity is around 38GW, we should aim to greatly expand that, to at least 10 GWh fairly quickly. Of course, some locations will much greater impact than others. Places where the feed is already close to maxed out at peak demand periods now, the batteries will have a much greater impact immediately.
One of the reasons I think we should be working towards dynamic pricing is, it could also be set to create the greatest private incentives where they are most needed. Having the largest price differential from the lowest of low off-peak, to the highest on-peak pricing in those areas where the feed is maxed out, would also create the strongest incentives for load shifting and batteries. This is the sort of change that makes nuclear look even better, compared to fossil fuels, because it increases the value of the steady eddy production
Sorry, by 2030 that would be 12GWh that have been contracted to come on line, 3GW output. If you skip through the link I posted to the battery section, I have a map of exactly where and what size the batteries that have been contracted are. I do agree that batteries work very well with nuclear.
I am for dynamic pricing in some cases, against in others. EV charging stations, for example, excellent use case. I am a lot less excited about the idea of putting on my dryer and leaving the house, and finding out the price doubled.
More important that dynamic pricing is getting batteries behind the meter at homes and businesses. Charging overnight, and then supplementing the grid during the day, will be a huge multiplier for the grid. Roof top solar will help this as well, allowing another recharge at noon.
One of the notions we should be heading for is especially things like dryers should have support to be price following, without owner intervention. Even when behind a home battery.
Don't want the dryer running when I could be selling power at 20 cents a kilowatt hour. The vast majority of the time, I would be happy to wait for the dryer to run at 2 am, if required, to be able to run it for 1/3 the price. (Washer dryers are becoming a thing, where they have heat pumps - these would be better still if they had the smarts to be price following). I tend to run ours at night
EV charging, even at home, is an excellent case, a little less so PHEVs, but even there, price bounding would be huge. There will be times (35 °C nights) where the grid would prefer the PHEV driver to use gas rather than charge. The EV home charger, typically, is plugged in, even when they are at 60 or 70% state of charge, charging to 80%, where their daily commute is less than 20% of the battery. They could set reactive bounds, where the vehicle charges based on price - at 10% don't care if it is 20cents, at 65% won't pay anything over 7
The thing with a smart grid and dynamic pricing, especially if you can sign up for it as part of a larger program, is encourages managed circuits, and smart appliances, that themselves can be price reactive.
I don’t have issues with time of use pricing that has a regular occurrence, I also run my driver at night. But I have become much less in favour of smart devices in residential use as a solution to energy demand issues. I think it is overly complex, somewhat punitive to people who can’t afford new devices, and largely intrusive in terms of data collection. It sounds very cool, but I think having reliable prices of energy for people is important, and that this opens a door I don’t particularly want open.
EV charging stations and industrial capability should be able to accommodate demand load following relatively easily given the scale. And in general, the grid should be built to provide the supply people require. I don’t think you should feel a pressure to be adjusting your home temperature on an hourly or even daily basis. There is a cost to what might be called “oversizing” the grid from a theoretic dynamic model; but there is a cost to building a grid that can meet that dynamic activity as well.
I think the burden of dynamic pricing will fall most heavily on those who can least afford it, both due to the cost of buying the equipment (smart appliances, batteries, roof top solar) and having to forgo energy use when the price goes up.
I know here, there are different rate groups (Bluewater power) that I can pick from, that have different pricing. The dynamic pricing should be phased in, similarly. People should not be forced on quickly, but it should be offered as a choice. So people have an incentive to buy a battery, to buy their next appliance, especially like a dryer, that has the ability built in.
The same group here that offers the lowest overnight rate, has a very high daytime rate. If you are part of that rate group, and could sell power, the arbitrage effect would squeeze out the reason for the pricing.
Yes, but we have been pushing things like "smart meters" and things like this for years, which already require communications; it is a question of policy to push this further. It represents a question of policy, and small changes to infrastructure to enable our existing infrastructure to act much more efficiently. There are a ton of things that can be done to improve how effectively we can use energy at the consumer level. That grid transmitting a dynamic price of electricity, in turn, would enable users to save a lot of money while helping to bring stability to the grid.
Our fridges should have setback thermostats, just like our homes do, or better still, both could react to the dynamic price of electricity. A fridge, for instance, usually has a large thermal mass, cooling it down an extra degree or two when there is excess generating capacity (Ontario has paid to dump power into adjoining states), would have consumers soak up a lot of excess supply, and when there was excess demand, the same fridge would be able to run less, when the power is in demand.
People with electric or even PHEV vehicles, do generally follow time-of-day home charging, where they have that pricing, they would also likely make even greater adjustments to dynamic pricing, so long as their cars permitted it, which they would quickly if there was a substantial benefit for doing so.
It is that a great deal can be done, with moderate changes to the very expensive grid infrastructure, with relatively low-cost changes to its intelligence, and a rethink of how power is priced. These changes would make solar, wind, and even nuclear more competitive on the generating side with fossil fuels. They would allow the grid to be balanced from both sides, instead of only being load following.
There are already programs you can sign up for in some places that allow the network operator to raise your thermostat and even battery pools where home batteries are signed up to be managed to some degree by the grid operators. It is merely that these programs need to be extended into more jurisdictions, or better still, be managed through dynamic pricing.
Hi Reece, long time follower, first time commenter, is there any business case of electrifying the CN & CPR routes between Toronto and Montreal? Would that improve the business case for Electric Trains on their lines?
Your comments about scaling up to reduce costs is spot on. TransLink’s trolley bus fleet is a model that could be used for cities all across Canada. Many cities used to use this technology but they got rid of it. Ive seen photos of Winnipeg’s old trolley buses so we know that tech works in the cold. I guess they thought the wires looked bad.
I have been arguing since the Trump drummed up drama that the most important strategic action Canada can take is to start electrifying parts of the 401 within Toronto in the manner of the German E-Highway, so that buses and trucks can connect to over head wires above the right hand lane. This would allow trucks making delivery runs to operate with relatively small batteries while charging on the high density corridors. Southern Ontario is profoundly dependent on oil shipped through Michigan, and this would have a huge impact on reducing the demand for Diesel, which is the most essential industrial RPP. If there is a sudden revoking of Line 5's permit, this would go a long way to insulating the economic fall out. That's beside obvious air quality and emissions benefits.
From a core net work in Toronto, this could be copied in Ottawa and Montreal, and then along the 401 connecting them with something like a 1:1 ratio of overhead wire and wireless sections, so that the entire corridor can rely on electrified transportation.
The sad part is, it would have been good policy to build Energy East, it would also be good policy to encourage a massive increase in the presence of batteries in power substations, as an alternative to growing capacity in transmission corridors, and building more gas-fired peaker plants. The broad adoption and use of said batteries with grid-supporting inverters to aid in frequency stability of the grid. The massive adoption and rollout of battery storage in homes and substations can fundamentally alter the economics of wind and solar.
Need to adopt an electricity pricing policy that would allow people in effect act to effectively arbitrage electricity on a time of day basis. The famous Duck curve would quickly vanish as an issue if a decent portion of households had 30 kWh of storage, where they could buy power when there was a surplus and sell when there was a shortage. It should be very feasible for the grid to transmit on the same wires that carry power, with second-by-second pricing that qualified users could then respond to, by either buying power at times of excess supply or selling at times where supply was falling short.
In terms of batteries at substations, Ontario has something like 3GW of battery storage planned by 2030
https://neolithic1.substack.com/p/the-surprisingly-radiant-future-of?r=1sae5o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
We need to expand that significantly so it becomes a significant portion of the grid capacity for an hour. Given our generation capacity is around 38GW, we should aim to greatly expand that, to at least 10 GWh fairly quickly. Of course, some locations will much greater impact than others. Places where the feed is already close to maxed out at peak demand periods now, the batteries will have a much greater impact immediately.
One of the reasons I think we should be working towards dynamic pricing is, it could also be set to create the greatest private incentives where they are most needed. Having the largest price differential from the lowest of low off-peak, to the highest on-peak pricing in those areas where the feed is maxed out, would also create the strongest incentives for load shifting and batteries. This is the sort of change that makes nuclear look even better, compared to fossil fuels, because it increases the value of the steady eddy production
Sorry, by 2030 that would be 12GWh that have been contracted to come on line, 3GW output. If you skip through the link I posted to the battery section, I have a map of exactly where and what size the batteries that have been contracted are. I do agree that batteries work very well with nuclear.
I am for dynamic pricing in some cases, against in others. EV charging stations, for example, excellent use case. I am a lot less excited about the idea of putting on my dryer and leaving the house, and finding out the price doubled.
More important that dynamic pricing is getting batteries behind the meter at homes and businesses. Charging overnight, and then supplementing the grid during the day, will be a huge multiplier for the grid. Roof top solar will help this as well, allowing another recharge at noon.
One of the notions we should be heading for is especially things like dryers should have support to be price following, without owner intervention. Even when behind a home battery.
Don't want the dryer running when I could be selling power at 20 cents a kilowatt hour. The vast majority of the time, I would be happy to wait for the dryer to run at 2 am, if required, to be able to run it for 1/3 the price. (Washer dryers are becoming a thing, where they have heat pumps - these would be better still if they had the smarts to be price following). I tend to run ours at night
EV charging, even at home, is an excellent case, a little less so PHEVs, but even there, price bounding would be huge. There will be times (35 °C nights) where the grid would prefer the PHEV driver to use gas rather than charge. The EV home charger, typically, is plugged in, even when they are at 60 or 70% state of charge, charging to 80%, where their daily commute is less than 20% of the battery. They could set reactive bounds, where the vehicle charges based on price - at 10% don't care if it is 20cents, at 65% won't pay anything over 7
The thing with a smart grid and dynamic pricing, especially if you can sign up for it as part of a larger program, is encourages managed circuits, and smart appliances, that themselves can be price reactive.
I don’t have issues with time of use pricing that has a regular occurrence, I also run my driver at night. But I have become much less in favour of smart devices in residential use as a solution to energy demand issues. I think it is overly complex, somewhat punitive to people who can’t afford new devices, and largely intrusive in terms of data collection. It sounds very cool, but I think having reliable prices of energy for people is important, and that this opens a door I don’t particularly want open.
EV charging stations and industrial capability should be able to accommodate demand load following relatively easily given the scale. And in general, the grid should be built to provide the supply people require. I don’t think you should feel a pressure to be adjusting your home temperature on an hourly or even daily basis. There is a cost to what might be called “oversizing” the grid from a theoretic dynamic model; but there is a cost to building a grid that can meet that dynamic activity as well.
I think the burden of dynamic pricing will fall most heavily on those who can least afford it, both due to the cost of buying the equipment (smart appliances, batteries, roof top solar) and having to forgo energy use when the price goes up.
I know here, there are different rate groups (Bluewater power) that I can pick from, that have different pricing. The dynamic pricing should be phased in, similarly. People should not be forced on quickly, but it should be offered as a choice. So people have an incentive to buy a battery, to buy their next appliance, especially like a dryer, that has the ability built in.
The same group here that offers the lowest overnight rate, has a very high daytime rate. If you are part of that rate group, and could sell power, the arbitrage effect would squeeze out the reason for the pricing.
Wouldn’t you need a smart grid for that to work? I thought that was a barrier against this option.
Yes, but we have been pushing things like "smart meters" and things like this for years, which already require communications; it is a question of policy to push this further. It represents a question of policy, and small changes to infrastructure to enable our existing infrastructure to act much more efficiently. There are a ton of things that can be done to improve how effectively we can use energy at the consumer level. That grid transmitting a dynamic price of electricity, in turn, would enable users to save a lot of money while helping to bring stability to the grid.
Our fridges should have setback thermostats, just like our homes do, or better still, both could react to the dynamic price of electricity. A fridge, for instance, usually has a large thermal mass, cooling it down an extra degree or two when there is excess generating capacity (Ontario has paid to dump power into adjoining states), would have consumers soak up a lot of excess supply, and when there was excess demand, the same fridge would be able to run less, when the power is in demand.
People with electric or even PHEV vehicles, do generally follow time-of-day home charging, where they have that pricing, they would also likely make even greater adjustments to dynamic pricing, so long as their cars permitted it, which they would quickly if there was a substantial benefit for doing so.
It is that a great deal can be done, with moderate changes to the very expensive grid infrastructure, with relatively low-cost changes to its intelligence, and a rethink of how power is priced. These changes would make solar, wind, and even nuclear more competitive on the generating side with fossil fuels. They would allow the grid to be balanced from both sides, instead of only being load following.
There are already programs you can sign up for in some places that allow the network operator to raise your thermostat and even battery pools where home batteries are signed up to be managed to some degree by the grid operators. It is merely that these programs need to be extended into more jurisdictions, or better still, be managed through dynamic pricing.
Hi Reece, long time follower, first time commenter, is there any business case of electrifying the CN & CPR routes between Toronto and Montreal? Would that improve the business case for Electric Trains on their lines?
Your comments about scaling up to reduce costs is spot on. TransLink’s trolley bus fleet is a model that could be used for cities all across Canada. Many cities used to use this technology but they got rid of it. Ive seen photos of Winnipeg’s old trolley buses so we know that tech works in the cold. I guess they thought the wires looked bad.