Centre Wellington Hydro has been named one of five provincial “energy champions” by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance (OCAA).
While OCAA officials say the failure of so many utilities to meet conservation targets is a sign the province needs to step up its approach, Centre Wellington Hydro president Wayne Dyce takes a different view.
“The true award winners really are our customers – that’s the bottom line,” said Dyce.
According to the Ontario Energy Board (OEB), only five of Ontario’s 75 electric utilities achieved 100% of their energy conservation targets for the years 2011 to 2014.
OCAA’s five energy conservation champions are Guelph Hydro, Kingston Hydro, Centre Wellington Hydro, Hydro 2000 and Chapleau Public Utilities.
The association noted none of Ontario’s large electric utilities met their 2014 OEB peak demand reduction targets.
“The failure of 93% of our electric utilities to achieve their OEB-mandated energy conservation targets means higher bills for Ontario’s electricity consumers and increased greenhouse gas emissions,” stated OCAA outreach director Angela Bischoff .
“This is simply not acceptable. It is time for the Government of Ontario to take a new approach to help us achieve all of our cost-effective energy conservation and efficiency savings.”
In a recent interview with the Advertiser, Dyce agreed Centre Wellington Hydro did do quite well with conservation targets from 2011 to 2014.
“We were one of five of the 70-plus LDCs (local distribution companies) than met both kilowatt hour conservation and our peak demand targets.”
He explained all LDCs were given targets and the IESO (Independent Electricity System Operator) offered incentive programs. The targets for LDCs originated as a result of the Green Energy Act in 2009.
Dyce said there was a mandate from the Ministry of Energy to reduce electrical energy in the province. The OEB and IESO were tasked with administering incentive programs such as Save on Energy coupons for purchase of energy efficient bulbs.
“We’re very proud of the accomplishment … to be only one of five to do this in the province,” said Dyce, who again stressed “it really was our customers that accomplished this.”
He spoke highly of the local utility’s “Customer Connect” tool that allows customers to view electrical usage, review billing history and subscribe to eBilling.
Customers can view their usage monthly, weekly, daily and even hourly. There is also the potential to receive emails if customers are using more electricity than they planned for.
While residential customers were able to shift some energy usage from prime to non-prime times, Dyce said they were able to reduce overall usage as well.
Dyce added commercial and industrial customers also took advantage of available programs.
“The lighting retrofit program was a big one,” he said, noting there were also some process-driven savings for some businesses, such as motor replacement or pumps.
Dyce said “it was really our relationship with our customers that allowed us to meet these targets.”
He said Centre Wellington had some favourable situations with some industrial customers in a great position, timing-wise, to take advantage of these programs. He specifically mentioned A.O. Smith and Jefferson Elora.
“They really took the ball and ran with it. Once they started to see the savings, it was like a snowball effect as they started taking the ideas into other aspects of their business – not just electricity – such as energy savings which affect their bottom line in the gas bill.”
LDCs are now in a second period of review, from 2015 to 2020. Dyce said a great start to meeting new targets is Centre Wellington Township’s decision to implement streetlight retrofits – moving to LED lights.
Dyce said he considers all customers of Centre Wellington Hydro partners in achieving conservation targets – from residential customers to businesses small and large and the township itself.
He anticipates new energy incentive programs will be launched in the near future.
Many of the next round of incentives will be similar to previous incentives, with a few tweaks, Dyce suggested
“You can’t keep banging the same drum and expect people to sign up,” he said.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to reach some customers who were unable to take advantage of the previous incentives … or reach customers who did take advantage of previous incentives and will be able to further reduce energy use.”
Dyce added, “We want to work hard during this next period to help our customers save even more energy.
“We know it is a mandate and a directive of the MOE, but we worked hard at this because it directly affects our customers.”
Dyce stressed, “We want to be good stewards, but we also want our customers to realize savings.”
Dyce agreed electrical bills will be going up as commodity prices go up.
“The province makes no bones about it, the price (of electricity) is going up,” Dyce said.
“If we can help our customers mitigate that, that is the way we perceive this whole venture.”
He said Centre Wellington had operated at the 100% mark for demands, but through conservation, saved 1.64 megawatts of peak demand power (101% of target) and a net cumulative energy savings of 7.81 gigawatt hours (137% of target).
Dyce said when people look at their bill they often just go to the bottom line.
“We can appreciate that gigawatt hours don’t mean a whole lot to people, but collectively if people save energy, they are saving money and they really are making a greater future.”
Dyce said, “I used to be a little bit cynical hearing people speak about phantom loads, and leaving their DVD player or VCR plugged in are only a few watts of power.
“But if you take those few watts and multiply that by 1.4 million homes, it adds up.”
