In “A Truly Smart Electricity Price Plan for Ontario” author Paul Acchione outlines how Ontario’s existing smart metering and renewable electricity generation investments can work together to reduce consumers’ costs. Based on an analysis made by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE), the author shows how improved rate design could make better use of existing generation resources by reducing both waste and “fire sale” exports.
Acchione describes how a rate design that better reflects the time-varying availability of renewable and clean baseload electricity would reduce consumers’ costs and GHG emissions from gas-fired generation. Consumers’ savings would cover the cost of control equipment that would automatically adjust their household electricity use to track the grid supply.
A 44-year veteran of Ontario’s power generation industry, Paul Acchione is now a Management Consultant at Market Intelligence and Data Analysis Corporation of Toronto. He was President and Chair of OSPE and previously worked for Ontario Power Generation and Ontario Hydro. He is currently a member of OSPE’s Energy Task Force and the Canadian Standard Association’s Advisory Council on Renewable Energy.
CCRE Commentary is published several times a year with each issue covering a single topic. Previous issues covered improving long-range electricity planning, redesign of the feed-in-tariff, ensuring customers benefit from utility mergers, and gaining public acceptance for energy infrastructure.
The Council for Clean & Reliable Electricity (CCRE) is a forum for reasoned analysis on subjects related to energy policy. In the past the Council has sponsored conferences on the Auditor General’s report on Ontario’s renewable energy program, clean coal technology, nuclear power, governance models in the electricity sector, biomass energy opportunities and rationalizing electricity distribution.
