IESO coverup of positive gas phase-out findings revealed

As reported in today’s Globe and Mail, thanks to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request filed by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance (OCAA), we now know that the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) fully understood that its report on the feasibility of a gas-fired power phase-out was highly misleading and skewed to present a frightening worst-case scenario.

In the 400 pages of material released by the IESO in response to our FOI request, we discovered that the agency actually modeled three potential scenarios for phasing out gas. In two of the scenarios, phasing-out gas power would be good for the environment and your pocket book – either raising costs by a mere 3% or decreasing costs by 8% while reducing greenhouse gas pollution!

So how did the IESO come to release a report last fall claiming that a gas phase-out would increase costs for Ontario consumers by 60%? By heavily skewing its own findings and allocating a hugely disproportionate share of costs to residential ratepayers, not to mention including loopy ideas like building a $3 billion new nuclear reactor – that’s how.

It’s clear that this rejigging of results was designed simply as a scare tactic – what government would require residential customers to pay three times their fair share of the cost of phasing out gas power?

In the alternative scenarios kept from the public, the IESO found that applying the federal carbon price to all gas consumed for power production would reduce gas plant pollution by 75% and raise costs by only 3%. This would mostly occur because the carbon price signal would lead to fewer gas-power exports and more imports of low-cost waterpower from Quebec.

Even more incredible is the IESO’s finding that replacing polluting gas power with a combination of renewable energy, storage and deeper efficiency efforts would actually reduce costs by 8%. Exactly what OCAA has been saying all along!

Did the IESO suppress this information knowing that the Ford government is adamantly opposed to renewable power development, and has already slashed spending by 60% on cost-effective efficiency efforts? Did IESO Chair Joe Oliver, a notorious climate denier appointed by the Ford government, have a role to play? We can’t say for sure, but as Shakespeare wrote, “something is rotten in the State of Denmark,” or Ontario in this case.

You can read more in today’s Globe and Mail piece. You can also see our analysis of the FOI materials we received from the IESO.

What you can do

Please send a message to Energy Minister Todd Smith asking him why these positive findings were suppressed, and what he will do to ensure we get a fair, honest and transparent analysis from the IESO in its next report on how Ontario can phase-out climate-damaging gas power.