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The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) produces a daily, weekly and monthly report referred to on their website as “Market Summaries.” From these reports one is able to discern considerably more information than the recently launched emPOWERme website that Chiarelli announced with much fanfare just last week. The emPOWERme site seems aimed at eight or nine year olds who aren’t involved in paying the hydro bills. By contrast, the IESO site is aimed at providing information that enables “energy literate” ratepayers to really understand what is driving up their bills.

The IESO reports are particularly helpful as they disclose extensive information on the provincial power markets, including the average hourly Ontario energy price (HOEP), average daily consumption levels, average exports, and the final all-in price per kilowatt (kWh) hour, along with adjustments made by the Ontario Energy Board (OEB).

The news is not good. For the first 10 months of 2013, Ontario exported 14,983,776 MWh (enough to power almost 1.6 million average Ontario homes for a full year). Revenue from those exports totaled $381-million. Average price for the exports works out to 2.54 cents per kWh.

Now let’s look at what those 14,983,776 exported MWh cost ratepayers. Using the IESO monthly reports, we find that the all-in cost – as reported in the IESO’s “Summary of Wholesale Market Electricity Charges in Ontario’s Competitive Marketplace”– for the 10 months worth of exports is $1.6-billion, or 10.5 cents a kWh. From the two above dollar figures any literate person can quickly determine that we lose just over $1.2-billion on our exports. That’s a loss of eight cents per kWh and a cost $250 for every average ratepayer in the province over 10 months. The last two months of the year will likely push that to $300.

No sign of these numbers at Chiarelli’s emPOWERme site. And no indication that the main source of all that exported energy is the wind and solar plants installed by Chiarelli’s government. Ratepayers are subsidizing wind and solar at home and at the same time delivering cheap power to Ontario’s economic competitors.

Parker Gallant is a former Canadian banker who looked at his local electricity bill and didn’t like what he saw. His first Ontario’s Power Trip report was published on FP Comment in 2010.