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Quebec has put separatism on the backburner. Is Ontario ready to reciprocate — by renouncing its own costly history of electricity separatism?
For decades, Ontario built political moats around its nuclear reactors — and raised the drawbridges to prevent the flow of cheaper hydroelectric power from our neighbouring province. But as Central Canada faces up to an era of economic upheaval and energy uncertainty, against a backdrop of newfound political stability, the calculus is changing.
We’ll get a hint of the economic and political benefits of energy co-operation Friday, when Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard and a dozen of his senior ministers sit down with Ontario’s cabinet. The meetings of ministers will produce a meeting of minds:
After months of negotiations kicked off by Wynne and Couillard, the two provinces are set to sign a historic power-sharing agreement — electrical, not political. The goal is to backstop each other’s base load electricity during peak periods, going beyond the traditional stop-gap approach of buying and selling power on short-term deals at peak periods.
This new approach will lead to ongoing power swaps without any money changing hands: Quebec’s peak load occurs during the winter heating season, when electrical baseboard heating puts a strain on its abundant reservoirs of hydroelectricity. Ontario’s peak is precisely the opposite, during the summer air conditioning season when its nuclear reactors are tapped out.
It’s a perfectly complementary seasonal match, and the price will be complimentary — by way of bartering. It’s also a creative solution that could save each province the trouble of building extra generating capacity for those seasonal peaks — a true Wynne-win and Couillard coup.
So far so good. And better than before, when the two provinces were sidelined by political myopia and electricity inertia. But there are bigger, tougher (and potentially beneficial) decisions facing this new axis of Central Canadian economic and electrical power.
For the rest of this column, click here: http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/11/19/quebecontario_powersharing_shows_energy_synergy_cohn.html#