Ontario Canada Study Shows Wind, Solar, Batteries Competing with Gas and Nuclear

16 pointsposted 13 hours ago
by toomuchtodo

10 Comments

thijson

10 hours ago

Ontario's live generating mix is here:

https://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html

As I post this, nuclear is the largest contributor.

The Bruce Nuclear Generating Station is the largest in North America:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Nuclear_Generating_Stati...

I believe they are looking at building a Bruce C to add even more capacity.

theluketaylor

9 hours ago

Bruce C was scrapped 15 years ago.

There is extensive long term refurbishment of the existing reactors that includes uprated capacity, but there isn't currently any plans to add new reactors at Bruce.

A different Ontario nuclear site (Darlington) does have work underway to build four BWRX-300 reactors, one of which will be the first in the world.

NuclearPM

7 hours ago

Nope. We are planning Bruce C now.

gnabgib

12 hours ago

Ontario gets 21% of it's power from hydro-electricity which provides closer to baseline power than variable-generation. The report never mentions hydro (although due to a quirk all electricity is called hydro in Ontario and BC) which is concerning.. Nuclear generation isn't particularly large at 2x hydro, gas 1x, solar and wind are less than half. Gas is the only peaking source listed.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=251000...

toomuchtodo

12 hours ago

Indeed, so how do you replace the gas peaking? Solar, wind, batteries, existing nuclear and hydro, and perhaps some balancing with existing interconnects with Manitoba, Québec, NYISO, and MISO.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/CA-ON/12mo/monthly

(75% of Ontario's trailing twelve months electrical consumption was generated by low carbon technologies, the remainder is the gap to fill; adjacent Manitoba and Québec grids stand at 90%+ low carbon for the same time period)

tensorlibb

10 hours ago

What's interesting is solar in cold environments on sunny days can actually OVER produce.

I've had a few friends run into this issue with systems almost frying inverters because they didn't allow enough headroom for open circuit voltage coming from the panels.

metalman

12 hours ago

Next gen solar and batteries are going to wipe everything else away. PV will hit 40% conversion efficiency, sodium and solid state batteries will reduce costs and eliminate flamability issues while providing longer lifespans, capacitive battery tech will last indefinitly, as solar PV does now. I cant help it if the truth trolls the haters, and often I bite my ,my finger, but hey it's tuesday

engineer_22

13 hours ago

If competing means 25-75% more expensive