The integrated regional resource plan for Toronto was released in April, along with six other municipalities. A detailed feature on the IRRP process appeared in the June issue of IPPSO FACTO. A table taken from that issue shows the major features of the plan for Toronto. In most areas of the plan, the recommended approach to meet near- and mid-term needs (present to five years out) is provision of additional transformer or feeder line resources. Innovative resources like distributed generation and district energy, preferably using combined heat and power, are noted in several places but are found to be not available in time to meet the need in sufficient quantities to supply the growth already approved or under construction in the city.
Special protection systems (SPS) are recommended in some locations. As the official plan explains, these systems can be designed to maintain the electrical demand within the capability of the transmission and distribution equipment that is remaining in service following a critical breaker failure event. These are operational measures that are automated, and do not typically involve major infrastructure upgrades. The SPS is estimated to require one to two years for design and implementation, with a total cost in the order of $1 million to $3 million. When triggered, customer demand can be reduced in a strategic manner in order to maintain the equipment remaining in service below its emergency ratings and to prevent cascading failures and a wider customer impact.
Toronto’s Integrated Regional Resource Plan, released in April
| Near to Medium Term (Generally 2014 – 2023) | Long Term (Generally 2024 - 2033) |
| 1. Reconfigure the tap points of Horner TS on the Richview to Manby 230 kV lines to improve the distribution of loading on the 230 kV system by better balancing the loadings using existing infrastructure (completed by Hydro One in 2014). 2. Implement Special Protection Systems to address supply security and ensure that the reliability standards are met for breaker failure contingencies at the major transformer stations serving Central Toronto (Manby TS and Leaside TS). 3. Implement area-specific conservation options in order to defer 230 kV transmission line capacity needs. 4. Conduct further work to identify opportunities for distributed generation resources within the Central Toronto Area. 5. Proceed with work for increasing transformer station capacity in west Toronto by 2018, and in the downtown core by 2021. 6. Proceed with detailed investigation of the infrastructure options to provide capacity relief for the Richview – Manby 230 kV transmission corridor. 7. Investigate and implement cost-effective options for enhancing supply security and restoration capability following multiple element contingencies in Central Toronto. 8. Conduct further work to assess options for increasing system resiliency for extreme events. | Range: 10-25+ years
1. Establish a Local Advisory Committee to inform the long-term vision for electricity supply in the area. 2. Continue to engage with stakeholders and the community to develop community-based solutions. 3. Monitor demand growth, conservation achievement and DG uptake. 4. Initiate the next Regional Planning Cycle early, if needed. |
There are competing views on whether the resource plan for Toronto is doing all it can or should.
For his part, Fernando Carou sees the recently issued Central Toronto IRRP as basically an asset management coordination document for Hydro One and Toronto Hydro with assistance from the IESO. The working group for the IRRP during this phase was limited to the IESO, Hydro One, and Toronto Hydro. No other stakeholders were invited to the IRRP working group, so, in that sense the outcome is predictably short of addressing the energy challenges of Toronto, he says. The IESO expects later phases to be more inclusive.
Another key issue, despite the LTEP direction, is the lack of holistic energy system integration. Predictably, the plan is strictly about electricity and is silent about broader energy opportunities. Innovation of the kind outlined elsewhere in this feature do not appear, at least in the plans for near to medium term.
The IESO says the plan points to many innovative initiatives to manage demand that are already going on, and it recommends a deeper dialogue with the city and local stakeholders on customer-based solutions, such as those outlined elsewhere. Page 20 of the Central Toronto IRRP explains a number of initiatives that have been ongoing, with work in this area expected to continue.
Long-time conservation advocate Jack Gibbons, Chair of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, is more emphatic: “We should be doing all the energy efficiency that’s cost-effective. There’s a huge untapped energy efficiency potential – energy efficient building cladding, CHP instead of combined cycle plants. Premier Wynne’s policy is conservation first. The plan doesn’t implement that.
“The former OPA promised the Ministry they would develop these preliminary plans with full local engagement, and they didn’t do that. The plan was just developed by the usual suspects – IESO, Toronto Hydro, Hydro One, they didn’t include in their committee the city of Toronto, Enwave, Enbridge, environmental groups. That’s a huge problem. It doesn’t deal with resiliency and it doesn’t try to exploit all the energy efficiency opportunities that can help lower bills. They’ve got their first draft, which is to deal with the issues in the next few years. It’s inadequate. If they’d had a true multi-stakeholder advisory committee I don’t think these inadequacies would have occurred.
“The IESO needs to develop and finance a plan that allows our hospitals, subways, water treatment facilities to operate if one of our two major transmission lines goes down[3]. We need many small-scale CHP plants to increase our resiliency. New York City is required to be able to meet 80% of its electricity needs from local sources. In Toronto we can only meet 13%. The IESO should be contracting for CHP.
“What they’re planning to do in future consultations is deal with fringe issues, and the members of this advisory committee will be junior partners to give feedback. I saw the terms of reference, and it’s just junior partners. They promised Minister Chiarelli that local stakeholders would be included in the development of the plan as equal partners.
“The government plans to sign contracts with Bruce Power to rebuild six nuclear reactors. It’s going to be very expensive. They should be willing to pay private sector companies in downtown Toronto at least as much as Bruce Power for the rebuilds. OPG says the cost of power for rebuilding Darlington would be 8.9 cents/kWh – the IESO should be paying up to at least 8.9 cents save a kWh, but they’re nowhere close to doing that.”
Joe Toneguzzo, Director of Transmission Integration at the IESO, demurs as to how the integrated resource plan for Toronto should be understood:
“The plan sets out specific actions to deal with issues present today, or arising in the next five years. That’s the time frame within which action needs to be taken. Every integrated plan has a near and a mid-to long-term component. In that horizon the plan doesn’t recommend any specific investments, but does recommend that we begin now with an extensive community dialogue involving this local advisory committee.
“Rather than the IESO dictating to the city what its energy future should be, we set out some broad options. One of those is reliance on the provincial grid, building more transmission to bring generation into the city from outside. The other is community self-sufficiency, developing more of those resources internally. Where the community has expressed the desire to move in that direction, then we need to work with it on those types of customer-driven solutions. Especially in Toronto, where there isn’t the space to put in new infrastructure of this type, and the community might not be as supportive, we can work more closely with those who might develop CHP, DE, solar, renewables combined with storage, other types of smart grid options.
“Plans need to be updated every three to five years. We’re expecting to set up a local advisory committee some time in the fall. We’ll start the discussion. We’ll work with Toronto Hydro to see when it’s appropriate to issue another version of the plan, depending on what options should be going forward.”
Would the IESO get directly involved if one of the major towers wanted to put in a nodal power supply?
“We would need to get involved in the planning aspect. That would be quite a large electrical demand, and it could have an effect on the upstream system. If a number of large buildings in the city adopt this kind of technology, which relieves the transmission system, we need to know about that in our planning. We need to control costs, obviously, and we don’t want to over-build. We need to understand what direction customers are leaning in, what direction the city is leaning is, even what direction the city is incenting customers to go in. We don’t want to overbuild the grid, if most of the communities are going to be self-sufficient. We have to strike that balance.
As to who has been consulted, “We did a full community engagement effort prior to finalizing the plan for Toronto,” replies Toneguzzo. “We had a number of meetings with up to 17 city departments, each with their own issues. We met with the Board of Trade, and had a larger session on general service with small customers whom we met one on one, and the same with groups of residential customers.”
Fernando Carou, lead energy planner in the City of Toronto Environment and Energy Division, comments that although the IESO met with multiple City divisions to solicit input, there is no evidence to date that the input has been factored into the plan. For example, the letter from the City of Toronto’s Chief Corporate Officer, Josie Scioli, to the Minister of Energy in September of 2013, makes it clear that the plan is silent on the City of Toronto’s strategic needs for embedded energy solutions to address growth at the source, behind-the-meter cogeneration, district energy thermal networks, community energy planning, and improved back-up power in high-rise residential buildings for resilience to grid failure.
For his part, Jack Simpson at Toronto Hydro thinks the current plan has done its job.
“A lot of the work group was devoted to what-if planning. What if you lose one or two major elements in the supply circuits, how long to recover. This is done in concert with the IESO. It may be less obvious in the report. How does the system work day to day, and how under extreme conditions, how does it perform under contingency?
“We look at capacity, reliability and resiliency in developing the energy resource plan. We have reviewed design standards against floods, ice loads. Our rate submission for the next five years has some programs in there to adapt for extreme events. This will be an ongoing effort for us. When we renew old infrastructure, we look to put in the modern equivalent that has the reliability and resiliency designed in – higher temperature ratings, for example, or heavier loading to handle ice buildup. When we do major asset renewal, new equipment will have more monitoring, condition information on it, that goes back to our system operators and maintenance people, to have better visibility into the assets, either to better stretch their life or to replace them prior to failure. Modern equipment has more features to support resilience and reliance.
Copeland station (see "Toronto Hydro completes tunnel for new transformer station," also this issue) is an important facility in meeting load growth downtown, and also in allowing us to do maintenance and replacement at adjacent stations. The Windsor-John station is heavily loaded – we’ll be able to do replacement work there once we’re able to offload some of those buses onto Copeland.”
[3] About the number of transmission lines feeding Toronto, the IESO comments as follows: There are three major supply points into central Toronto: Leaside TS, Manby TS (which is actually two separately operated points – Manby East and Manby West; and the Hearn station, which connects the Portlands Generating station. Leaside is supplied by six 230 kV lines, and Manby is supplied by four 230 kV lines. As the plan notes, with conservation savings that are planned and ongoing, and with additional demand management and distributed generation, the transmission supply into the downtown area can be sufficient for many years.