Ontario ratepayers should have seen lower rates in September than they did.

The IESO obfuscates cost reporting every month. In their Monthly Market Reports they show generation in figure 18, by meaningful categories: nuclear, hydro, gas/oil, solar/ wind/ biofuel and imports. It’s not good data due to the growing share of embedded generators (not shown), but it’s relevantly categorized. Conversely, figure 23, displaying costs, is just a shiterie of categories: OEFC, OPG, Conservation, Funds and Financing, Industrial Electricity Incentive Program, Renewables - Standard Offer Program, Natural Gas and Nuclear (non-OPG), Hydro, Biomass and Landfill, and finally, Wind & Solar.

I’ve written on this deceptive data presentation before, but a quick review of September’s figure 23 might provide a more coherent reason to be insulted.

September 2015 was significantly different than September 2014 in that demand was much higher (~5%), particularly during warm days in the first half of the month, and committed supply was lower during the back half of the month due to Darlington nuclear generating station being offline for a vacuum building outage. These factors drove the average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) up, which would lower the global adjustment charge - unless the IESO just threw in additional charges.

Which they did.



They called it “Funds and Financing”

Here’s sections of the above graph comparing only Septembers:

The Global adjustment total of $713.4 million in September 2015 was $71.1 million less than in September 2014 - which was more than offset by an increase of over $200 million in market value (at the HOEP). The global adjustment share due to OPG was down $98.4 million - so everything else was up.

It’s clear from the graph that “natural gas & Nuclear (non-OPG” was also down significantly. The increase in hydro is notable - likely due to the Lower Mattagami - but I won’t dwell on it here. Together nuclear, hydro and natural gas (also a significant portion of the OEFC category) comprised about 85% of September supply.

This leaves the remaining 15% of supply, as well as non-supply, growing by roughly 50% over the previous September - from around $200 million to about $300 million.





The most annoying aspect of this isn’t the growth in price, it’s the tagging on of an especially obscure “Funds and Financing” charge to avoid Ontarians recognizing savings from fewer less heavily subsidized exports and a reduced cost transfer to the rest of us from Ontario’s largest, “class A”, consumers (due to the rising HOEP).

The IESO includes this note:

Funds and Financing. This category includes programs to support community groups in the design and delivery of renewable energy initiatives. It also includes contract penalties received from generators

I don’t know what that means aside from the IESO has found yet another way to hide the costs of its adventures in electricity, and not electricity, procurement - or maybe they just decided Ontarians didn’t deserve the break the less overly supplied market would have presented them were the IESO not there to prevent the market from functioning.