Call me cynical if you must, but sometimes it seems that credit is given where no credit is due. Now that the brief electricity crisis caused by the recent heat wave seems to have ended, the powers that be are patting themselves on the back for their suggestions to help Ontario residents lower their energy consumption. Yet the importance of this official advice has been grossly exaggerated.
On July 21, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) announced that, due to a break in weather conditions, it would be lifting the power advisory it had issued several days earlier. The advisory had requested that Ontario residents voluntarily reduce their electricity use so as not to overload the power grid–a primary cause of the rolling blackouts that occurred in Kingston a few days ago. And it seems to have been successful; as IESO Chief Operating Officer Paul Murphy explained it, “the efforts of the Ontario consumers and businesses who heeded the call to conserve electricity reduced the load on the system and provided us with the flexibility that we needed to continue to reliably operate the power system.”
Speaking realistically, the primary reason for the recent decrease in Ontario power demand was not the result of energy-conscious citizens, but rather the fact that the weather has cooled off slightly. With this respite from the sweltering summer heat, people have real reason to ease off the power on their air conditioners, and it is this more than anything that has brought the power situation back under control for the time being.
That is not to say that the warnings by the IESO and the provincial government have been completely worthless. Certainly, there is a segment of the population that tends to conserve energy more than others. These are the people who keep their air conditioners at 26°C, turn their lights off whenever possible, and regularly rub sticks together in an attempt to generate power. And to these people I say bravo. You’re picking up a lot of slack.
But for the rest of us, even if we do turn out the lights whenever we’re not using them, power use begins and ends with basic human instinct. That is to say, if you’re hot, you want to be cool. If you’re hot and you have an air conditioner, you will crank up that air conditioner in order to be cool—thus leading to greater electricity consumption.
If cooler temperatures is one reason why the strain on the power grid has been lowered, then higher electrical bills would be the other. Prolonged use of air conditioners on a high setting costs the average household far too much to go on indefinitely. As an incentive to lower the setting on one’s air conditioner, expensive bills are vastly more effective than any advice dished out by the IESO.
To be sure, it was often the case where even when attempting to abide by the suggestions laid out by the IESO for energy conservation, the results fell quite wide of the mark. In many stores and office buildings, although the lights are dimmed, the air conditioning is set high enough to raise goosebumps. Obviously, this effort to conserve power was a poor attempt when one considers that air conditioners have been the primary drain of electricity in Ontario during this heat wave. The frigid temperatures maintained by air conditioners neutralized the energy-saving effects of dimming the lights. Hence even when the suggestions of the IESO are taken, they don’t always make a real difference.
The issuing of the power advisory by the IESO and/or the government was a fairly well-intentioned and reasonable measure. It certainly played a role in bringing the issue of energy conservation to the attention of Ontario residents. However, the basic need to keep cool served to counteract the positive effects of the advisory. If citizens lowered their electrical use, it was generally not because they were conscious of the need to conserve energy, but rather the fact that they wanted to avoid paying electrical bills higher than the GDP of a small nation.
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