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Hydro One should get its new American subsidiary out of the coal-power business, Premier Kathleen Wynne said Friday.
The former public utility, in which the Ontario government is now a big but minority shareholder, will pick up a stake in a large coal plant once its $6.4-billion purchase of an electricity and natural-gas company based in Washington state goes through.
That company, Avista Utilities, gets much of its power from hydroelectricity but also from the 2,100-megawatt Colstrip power station in eastern Montana, one of the biggest coal-generating stations west of the Mississippi River. Avista’s a part owner of the plant, along with five other utilities.
Ontario closed the last of its coal plants by government order in 2014, outlawed coal-generated electricity a year later, and has boasted about being a global leader in the fights against air pollution and climate change as a result.
“I see, in this acquisition by Hydro One, an opportunity for the values that we share in here in Ontario, the values that have led us to creating a pretty much pollution-free electricity grid, an opportunity to spread that value system,” Wynne said in Kanata. She was in Ottawa for a day-long summer visit, starting at the offices of BlackBerry QNX, which makes software and equipment for driverless cars.
The previous day, Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault said through a spokesman that Hydro One’s decisions are its own and will be based on business imperatives. Coal electricity is banned in Ontario but what happens in Montana is Montana’s business.
Glenn Thibeault, Minister of Energy announces he will suspend large renewable energy procurement in Toronto, Ont. on Tuesday September 27, 2016. Dave Abel/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network
Wynne struck a very different note.
“I already had a conversation, actually, with (Hydro One chief executive) Mayo Schmidt yesterday and I said, you know, the fact is that we have a coal-free electricity grid here in Ontario and I think that that’s a great thing and I expect that that value system will be shared and, in fact, the validation that came back is that that’s exactly one of the reasons Avista was looking at this, so I think this is an opportunity,” Wynne said.
Wynne and other Liberal ministers have said often that Ontario’s closing its coal plants makes it a global leader. Coal has historically been cheap to buy and burn for electricity but the pollution it creates is bad for human health immediately and the carbon dioxide it emits contributes to warming the earth, which is dangerous in the long run. Energy types from other jurisdictions come to talk to Ontario officials to learn how to follow what we’ve done, Wynne repeated Friday.
“We have to look at not just what’s happening in Ontario. It’s great that we’ve shut down all our coal-fired plants, But we want to make sure that there’s an understanding much more broadly that that can work,” she said. “What better way to do that than to demonstrate through practical application how that works?
“My hope is that we will see the kind of action here in Ontario taken there, (and) in other places as well,” she said.
Wynne stopped short of saying she’d insist that Hydro One do anything in particular with the Colstrip plant, assuming the deal to take over Avista goes through as expected in 2018. The government has sold just over half of Hydro One to private shareholders, mainly mutual funds and institutional investors, so she’d have to apply influence, not give orders.
Hydro One and Avista are both profitable and the idea behind their deal is that they’ll save money by combining things such as back-office computer systems and by buying supplies and equipment together in bulk. Avista is supposed to keep operating semi-independently as a subsidiary, wholly owned by Hydro One but with its own board of directors and headquarters in Spokane.
This Sept. 30, 2014 file photo shows the Colstrip Steam Electric Station operated by Talen Energy in southeastern Montana.
Avista couldn’t just close the Colstrip plant. The power plant and the strip mine that feeds it are the whole reason the town of Colstrip exists, and preserving the hundreds of jobs they provide to the 2,300-person town is a political priority for Montana Democrats and Republicans alike. But Avista could conceivably sell its stake.
Avista’s most recent regulatory filings say Avista intends to keep its share in Colstrip until at least 2037, though it’s worked up scenarios for what happens if it closes, if it stays working but Avista stops drawing power from it, and if Avista keeps drawing power from it but scales back. Washington state legislators have talked about forbidding utilities there from selling electricity derived from coal, though Avista also sells power in Montana, Idaho and Oregon.
The company has estimated the cost of replacing its Colstrip electricity with a power from a gas-fired generating station (which is pretty much what Ontario did to close its coal plants) at $250 million US, money it would make up partly in reduced profits and partly by charging customers more.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
The former public utility, in which the Ontario government is now a big but minority shareholder, will pick up a stake in a large coal plant once its $6.4-billion purchase of an electricity and natural-gas company based in Washington state goes through.
That company, Avista Utilities, gets much of its power from hydroelectricity but also from the 2,100-megawatt Colstrip power station in eastern Montana, one of the biggest coal-generating stations west of the Mississippi River. Avista’s a part owner of the plant, along with five other utilities.
Ontario closed the last of its coal plants by government order in 2014, outlawed coal-generated electricity a year later, and has boasted about being a global leader in the fights against air pollution and climate change as a result.
“I see, in this acquisition by Hydro One, an opportunity for the values that we share in here in Ontario, the values that have led us to creating a pretty much pollution-free electricity grid, an opportunity to spread that value system,” Wynne said in Kanata. She was in Ottawa for a day-long summer visit, starting at the offices of BlackBerry QNX, which makes software and equipment for driverless cars.
The previous day, Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault said through a spokesman that Hydro One’s decisions are its own and will be based on business imperatives. Coal electricity is banned in Ontario but what happens in Montana is Montana’s business.
Glenn Thibeault, Minister of Energy announces he will suspend large renewable energy procurement in Toronto, Ont. on Tuesday September 27, 2016. Dave Abel/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network
Wynne struck a very different note.
“I already had a conversation, actually, with (Hydro One chief executive) Mayo Schmidt yesterday and I said, you know, the fact is that we have a coal-free electricity grid here in Ontario and I think that that’s a great thing and I expect that that value system will be shared and, in fact, the validation that came back is that that’s exactly one of the reasons Avista was looking at this, so I think this is an opportunity,” Wynne said.
Wynne and other Liberal ministers have said often that Ontario’s closing its coal plants makes it a global leader. Coal has historically been cheap to buy and burn for electricity but the pollution it creates is bad for human health immediately and the carbon dioxide it emits contributes to warming the earth, which is dangerous in the long run. Energy types from other jurisdictions come to talk to Ontario officials to learn how to follow what we’ve done, Wynne repeated Friday.
“We have to look at not just what’s happening in Ontario. It’s great that we’ve shut down all our coal-fired plants, But we want to make sure that there’s an understanding much more broadly that that can work,” she said. “What better way to do that than to demonstrate through practical application how that works?
“My hope is that we will see the kind of action here in Ontario taken there, (and) in other places as well,” she said.
Wynne stopped short of saying she’d insist that Hydro One do anything in particular with the Colstrip plant, assuming the deal to take over Avista goes through as expected in 2018. The government has sold just over half of Hydro One to private shareholders, mainly mutual funds and institutional investors, so she’d have to apply influence, not give orders.
Hydro One and Avista are both profitable and the idea behind their deal is that they’ll save money by combining things such as back-office computer systems and by buying supplies and equipment together in bulk. Avista is supposed to keep operating semi-independently as a subsidiary, wholly owned by Hydro One but with its own board of directors and headquarters in Spokane.
This Sept. 30, 2014 file photo shows the Colstrip Steam Electric Station operated by Talen Energy in southeastern Montana.
Avista couldn’t just close the Colstrip plant. The power plant and the strip mine that feeds it are the whole reason the town of Colstrip exists, and preserving the hundreds of jobs they provide to the 2,300-person town is a political priority for Montana Democrats and Republicans alike. But Avista could conceivably sell its stake.
Avista’s most recent regulatory filings say Avista intends to keep its share in Colstrip until at least 2037, though it’s worked up scenarios for what happens if it closes, if it stays working but Avista stops drawing power from it, and if Avista keeps drawing power from it but scales back. Washington state legislators have talked about forbidding utilities there from selling electricity derived from coal, though Avista also sells power in Montana, Idaho and Oregon.
The company has estimated the cost of replacing its Colstrip electricity with a power from a gas-fired generating station (which is pretty much what Ontario did to close its coal plants) at $250 million US, money it would make up partly in reduced profits and partly by charging customers more.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
