Henvey Inlet 300 MW Wind Farm, Georgian bay, 2019. (Photo credit, S. Lapp)
St. Lawrence College 2015 Tour of Northland 10 MW PV Farm, Belleville, Ontario (Photo Credit S. Lapp)
Modelling a Zero Carbon Ontario Grid
Towards the year 2050 as we electrify almost everything that currently uses fossil fuels, Ontario will need to generate maybe 50% more to possibly as much as twice the TWh that were generated in 2021. Exactly how much more is very uncertain at the moment as there is no overall provincial plan to get to a near zero carbon 2050. To meet a near zero greenhouse gas emissions goal, new electrical generation to 2050 must be near zero or zero carbon, but how many more TWh we need depends on how we improve building and industrial energy efficiency, and how many electric vehicles there are, and whether those vehicles are load and/or storage and generation for the grid (Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G)), amongst many other factors. The March 2024 IESO Annual Planning Outlook report forecasts 245 TWh by 2050.New zero carbon electricity generation can be from wind, solar, small and small sized hydro, combined with increased storage using water, batteries and EV battery V2G technologies. We will also need widespread demand management, energy efficiency improvements and load shifting. A tiny bit of natural gas generation could transition to hydrogen-sourced generation…or some carbon capture technologies....maybe! However, it is as yet uncertain if hydrogen will be a player of any magnitude; it is still expensive to produce a zero carbon hydrogen and carbon capture has yet to be widely deployed with proven and repeatable commercial costs. Billions are slated to be invested in SMRs, but there is no commercial certainty as to what role they will play in 2050 or where our current large contribution of nuclear will be in 2050.Modelling a very low carbon grid.
One of the challenges in designing a zero carbon grid is understanding how intermittent but reliable sources such as wind and solar, when combined with storage can become a “firmer” source of electricity and provide a much larger contribution to annual generation. Below is very preliminary modelling work for the Ontario electricity system showing the first three months of a modelled year with many multiples of wind and solar capacity compared to today. Expanding our solar and wind with storage by many multiples of what we presently have is one way to get to a zero carbon society. The IESO's ongoing procurement of 5,000 MW of zero emitting generation and storage is critical in demonstrating the wind/solar/storage path as economically advantageous. At CarbonTakedown we are doing our own modelling of a heavy wind/solar/storage system for Ontario. The model is built using actual IESO 2019 hour by hour generation mix data. If you’re interested in learning more about this modelling, send me a note.
Above is a simulation that shows the MW load versus days from January 1st. The load chart shown represents 142 TWh of annual production with greatly reduced nuclear (due to decommissioning of current plants), 21,000 MW of wind capacity, 45,000 MW of solar photovoltaic capacity and the partial battery capacity from 4 million EVs with V2G technology in place. This system would require twice the current maximum natural gas generation capacity to cover brief periods of low wind and solar renewables generation (the black areas), but due to the large storage capacity, this mix would have about one third the present 2021 annual natural gas GHG emissions. More detailed results to come. (S. Lapp Jan 2023)