How can Manitoba Hydro improve Power Smart?
Manitoba Hydro has received top ranking for its Power Smart energy conservation programs (p. 35 of 2010-2011 Power Smart Annual Review). But last year’s plan showed a sharp drop-off in anticipated savings over the next decade, as noted in by Philippe Dunsky. The Province has asked Manitobans how to improve Manitoba Hydro’s Power Smart performance. Green Action Centre’s full response can be found here.
Manitobans’ demand for electricity is rising so fast that, at peak times, it will outstrip the capacity of Conawapa and two Keeyasks in 35 years. It is no longer sufficient to view Power Smart as simply a customer service. Like a new dam, it is a resource that can be targeted and achieved to balance electricity demand with supply.
Recommendation 1: Manitoba Hydro needs to incorporate aggressive conservation measures (targeted resource acquisition) into its long-range integrated resource planning.
For decades, Manitoba Hydro has priced power in Manitoba at a discount. This has been done by subsidizing domestic rates with out-of-province profits and shielding consumers from the impending costs of new construction. Cheap electricity invites Manitobans to consume more and ignore the opportunities to save, thus undermining Power Smart efforts and contributing to rising demand. A solution? – Implement Power Smart inclined rates in which the last block of energy reflects the full cost of increasing electricity consumption. Both the Public Utilities Board and Manitoba Hydro have acknowledged the rates-conservation connection but have failed to agree how to do it. This is a costly and perverse regulatory failure.
Recommendation 2: Manitoba Hydro and the PUB need to follow through with a Power Smart rate strategy accompanied by a mitigation strategy for low-income customers. Green Action Centre has provided considerable evidence on these topics and has offered to help with rate and program design.
There are many other means to encourage customers to save as well. For example Hydro could print customized feedback on the bills of heavy consumers, such as “You use three times the average consumption in Manitoba, which costs you $xxx.xx dollars more every year. We can help you bring it down.”
Recommendation 3: In addition to continuing to develop higher efficiency standards, Manitoba Hydro needs to experiment with various economic and behavioral innovations to increase savings.
Finally, Manitoba Hydro needs to address the serious problem of growing conversions to electric heat. Such conversions are costly to customers, Manitoba Hydro and the Province and yield almost three times the amount of global greenhouse gases.
Recommendation 4: A core electricity conservation strategy for Manitoba Hydro should be to facilitate conversions from electric to other heat sources and arrest conversions in the other direction. As electricity prices rise, conversions away from electric heat should become even more economic than they are at present and can largely be funded from the pay-as-you-save (PAYS) program.
See also How can Manitoba Hydro best meet Manitobans’ need for power?
The $17-billion question – Winnipeg Free Press, March 1, 2014.
There are a number of new innovative insulation technologies and techniques that outperform conventional insulation methods. Many have been developed and are manufactured right here in Manitoba. Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) is environmentally responsible and lends itself to new innovation. There are 3 under utilized EPS plants in Manitoba. Why is Power Smart continuing to promote archaic insulation technologies, made in other provinces and countries, when It could be promoting innovative technologies made in Manitoba. It doesn’t make sense!
Thanks, Robert, for the thorough account of the difficulties of insulating a 1907 house. I’ll forward it to the Affordable Energy people at Hydro to see if they have any solutions.
“Manitoba Hydro needs to address the serious problem of growing conversions to electric heat. Such conversions are costly to customers, Manitoba Hydro and the Province and yield almost three times the amount of global greenhouse gases.”
Please explain why heating with hydro electricity is a problem and burning fossil fuels to produce heat is the solution.
Good question. Think of energy supply and services as a system, with gas and electricity as subsystems. Then pose the question: What can we do to reduce the GHGs produced by our energy system?
Obviously improving home heat retention and upgrading to a high-efficiency furnace in gas-heated homes will reduce gas burned and GHGs. But taking the further step to eliminate gas altogether by replacing it with an electric furnace or electric baseboard heaters actually INCREASES GHGs from the entire North American energy system. Why? Because the increased demand on the continental electrical system of heating with electricity will be supplied mostly by electricity from coal and gas generation plants in the U.S. [The U.S. fossil plants will be fired more to make up for the lower exports of hydroelectricity from Manitoba when Manitoba demand increases.] And these are much less efficient and dirtier than the high-efficiency gas furnace in your home. Manitoba Hydro estimates that switching an average home from gas to electricity for heating will reduce emissions in Manitoba by 3,374 kilograms of CO2e a year but increase them across the border by 12,293 kg CO2e/year for a net increase globally of 8,919 kg CO2e/year. See Economic, Load, and Environmental Impacts of Fuel Switching in Manitoba at http://www.hydro.mb.ca/regulatory_affairs/electric/gra_2012_2013/Appendix_26.pdf.
Those who already heat with electricity can reduce the carbon footprint of the system by installing geothermal, which uses less electricity leaving more for exports to displace U.S. fossil generation, or they can go further by switching to an automated pellet stove. But even a switch to high-efficiency natural gas heating will reduce global GHGs (although increasing Manitoba’s share). Since electric resistance heating is the most costly of the alternatives (to the customer, to Manitoba Hydro, to the Province and to the environment), a switch to one of these alternatives should save money (as well as global GHGs) allowing room for Pay as You Save (PAYS) financing on your bill for the new equipment.
We need an energy policy that accounts for carbon emissions! True accounting of fossil fuel use must be added to your list. What happened to ‘polluter pay’ requirements? There are far more fossil fuels on earth than we dare to burn. When are you and the rest of society going to understand this fact and do something about it? Are there any intelligent policies on earth when it comes to limits to fossil fuel emissions to the atmosphere?
Hi John,
I totally agree that we need to account for carbon emissions. One of the best ways to do that is to use less gas and less electricity (since the electricity we don’t use gets exported to turn down a coal plant or gas turbine in the US). Green Action Centre has also supported a carbon tax. See https://greenactioncentre.ca/living-green-living-well/carbon-tax-good-policy-good-politics/
I spoke to the Minister when he had a town hall meeting in my neighbourhood. The stated purpose was to convince low income people to take advantage of PowerSmart, but I was the only low income person there. Two higher income people, everyone else was a contractor.
My point was PowerSmart would not work for low income people. They expect houses to be like new houses, but any new house already has good insulation. I pointed out my house was built in 1907, so over a century old. It has wood chip insulation, the type of house where saving would produce most results. But Hydro is not willing to pay for that. My house is technically 1 and 3/4 story; that is the upper floor has a sloped ceiling that starts 5 feet above the floor. The roof is 45°, the ceiling is too. Insulation is wood chips. This house is built with real 2×4 timbers, so they’re 2″x4″; modern wall studs are only 1.5″ x 3.5″. That means the ceiling cavity is 4″ deep. Replacing the wood chips with Styrofoam would reduce my heating bill, and reduce energy consumption. Doing so requires removing the shingles, removing roofing boards (a 1907 house has boards, not plywood or OSB), scooping out the wood chips, and placing Styrofoam boards. I can do the work, but would require someone to pay for the insulation, as well as new shingles and rental of scaffolding. I have the skill to retain roofing boards, I can put them back. But Hydro does not want to pay for that. They expect the entire ceiling to be covered in an easily accessible attic.
In 1997 I re-shingled one side of the roof. I saw the wood chips. It’s confirmed. Some time before I bought the house, the plumbing leaked. There’s now a drop ceiling in the kitchen, with a trap door. I can see the old ceiling when I look through the trap door. There’s a whole in the wall, I can see the walls also have real 2″x4″ studs, and also have wood chip insulation.
My ground floor has a 9-foot ceiling, and real plaster/lathe walls. The kitchen ceiling is dropped to 8 1/2 feet, so it’s still taller than normal. The plaster is 2 inches thick. It’s very solid, a great advantage. Destroying that would destroy the house. But Hydro keeps saying the only way to replace insulation is to rip out the plaster, install fibreglass bat, and put up drywall. That would destroy the house. Contractors tell me removing the plaster would be expensive, but I will not allow that anyway. The only workable solution is to drill a hole in each wall cavity, vacuum out the wood chips, and replace with spray foam insulation. Hydro said they won’t pay for that. They claim spray foam is too expensive.
Another problem is attempts at some sort of tax credit. But my income is below the basic personal exemption for income tax. That means any tax credit would not reduce my taxes at all, that would not benefit me. Low income people need direct assistance.
So Hydro refuses to work with older homes. They only want to work with rich people who have new homes. But those homes already have sufficient insulation. This attitude will not conserve anything.