1. Five year sale of 130 megawatts (MW), 2004-2009: $46 million annually. [See Note 1]
2. Price (per kilowatt hour) for the five years: 4.0 cents per KWH.
3. Two year deal to sell 130 MW of power to Emera: Minimum $40 million annually.
4. a. Price for Emera deal (low; $40 million for 130 MW): 3.5 cents per KWH
b. Price for Emera deal (high; $80 million for 250 MW): 3.6 cents per KWH [See Note 2]
5. Cost of wheeling (paid to Hydro Quebec Transenergie): $19 million.
6. Cost of wheeling: 1.6 cents per KWH.
7. Average consumer electricity price, New York, 2008: 16.9 cents per KWH. [21.125 Canadian cents per KWH at 25% exchange rate]
8. Average consumer electricity price, New York, June to Sept 2008: 19.825 cents per KWH. [See Note 3]
9. According to a cabinet minister familiar with the details of the 1998 Guaranteed Winter Availability Contract (GWAC), Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro considered wheeling the power in 1998 but decided against it since the price earned and the wheeling costs were considered too high.
The figure at left shows pricing trends to 1999 for New York State. (Source: US EIA)
The information released thus far covers wheeling costs to the New York border.
Additional wheeling costs would apply for each transmission system through which the power is wheeled before delivery to the final consumer.
Emera is a broker, not a New York state energy retailer.
10. The GWAC is apparently still in place. This requires Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro to operate the plant at Churchill falls at peak efficiency to deliver at least 682 MW to Hydro Quebec during the winter months. This amount may have been increased under this deal to 800 MW to replace the power that was sold to Quebec from 1998 to 2009 as part of the GWAC but which will now be wheeled to New York.
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Note 1: Values in Canadian dollars. American prices in American dollars, except as noted.
Note 2: 130 megawatts is equivalent to 1.1388 billion KWH. 250 MW is equivalent to 2.19 billion KWH. The figures at Line 4 are derived by simply dividing the revenue by the power output. Since Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro did not release sufficient detail it is unclear if the revenue figures correspond to the power output or not. 130 megawatts at the higher price yields a price of 7.0 cents per KWH.
Note 3: Source: New York Energy Research and Development Authority
4 comments:
Just a note on the attempt to equate MW and MW.hrs. You can't. The first is the power capability of a system (machine, station, line, etc); it's a static number determined by the design of that system. The other is an accumulating measure of the energy developed or delivered by that system. It just plain wrong to suggest a unitless factor can convert MW to kWhrs. You're getting a sidelong frown from every electrical power engineer reading that (including yours truly).
Thanks for the feedback, AB.
The intention here was to come up with some sort of comparison that was reliable and made sense.
Power isn't bought and sold, as far as I know, on the basis of the static measure (MW, MW, GW) and if I have inadvertently mixed up two concepts in a way that comes up with a false result then that error is mine.
That said, the static measure has to be converted out at some point and since no one has provided it, I dug around a bit and found a calculation that made sense to me (not a sparky, nor do I play one on TV).
I am not sure that my conversion is that wrong, even if the science/engineering is.
The conversion for the Hydro Quebec wheeling charge seems to be on the money as it is consistent with other rates that I am aware of.
Perhaps I could appeal to the electrical engineers out there to take a second from the sideways glance and suggest a method of converting the sale figures here, given in megawatts into a measure that fits how the power is apparently bought and sold (cents per kilowatt hour).
We all live and learn.
A) Power(MW) isn't bought or sold, energy is (MWH). I see how you (or your source) equated 130MW to 1.1388 billion kWH; you (or they)took 130MW, multiplied by the number of hours in a year and then divided by 1000 to get a result in kWh.
B) At the wholesale level, energy is more practically transacted in $/MWh; you and I buy at retail so it's done at pennies/kWh. In the context of this story, $36/MWh (same as 3.6 cents/kWh) is definitely most applicable for energy rates. In addition, total energy will be reported in MWh or GWh (1MWh x 1000) depending on reporting period and total energy delivered. For example, if NALCO somehow managed to deliver 130MW uninterrupted and undiminished over a full year they would report production at 1138.8GWH. They would gross a shade under $41M on sales.
Suitably corrected, I'll go back and rework my calculations.
Thanks for that.
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