MISSISSAUGA-Conspiracy theorists who suppose that there is a darkened room somewhere where suit- and top hat-clad capitalists buy and sell everything are only partly wrong. Such a place exists. Sort of.
It is indeed dim, but the nineteenth century trappings are all gone, replaced instead by the distinctly modern chatter of people, the ringing of phones, and the warbling of chimes and warning sounds. The half dozen or so individuals who work there have a lot of power in their hands-they control the provision of electricity to homes and businesses across the province.
The system control centre of Ontario’s power grid is found at an undisclosed location in Mississauga. It is operated by the Independent Market Operator (IMO), an entity spun out of now-defunct Ontario Hydro in 1999.
On a very hot (or cold) day, nearly 25,000 megawatts will course through its veins-enough to light up about 400 million ordinary light bulbs. Its centrepiece is a wallboard that charts the power grid’s innards.
“It’s a representation of all the high-tension transmission elements we’ve got in the province,” explained an IMO engineer who asked to remain anonymous. He is able to make sense of the jumble of the power grid’s circulatory system, sets of parallel lines snaking across the display in every direction.
“You can get a very quick overview of the power system,” he said. The display shows all the generating stations in Ontario, and its connections to neighbouring provinces and the U.S. Lines represent high-tension power lines.
Each is like a fragile artery that can only carry so much juice. If safety thresholds are exceeded, expensive damage to power lines may occur.
“There’s about 26 or 27 thousand [data] points we monitor every two seconds,” to ensure that doesn’t happen, said the engineer. “They’re doing voltage control on a minute-by-minute basis,” he added, pointing to the three reliability engineers sitting at work stations that bristled with monitors.
Another challenge is to match demand with supply-and this is where the buying and selling comes in.
Since electricity, once produced, cannot be stored, the amount of power streaming forth from power outlets across Ontario must match the amount produced at power plants at every moment. With demand spiking sharply between 6 a.m and 9 a.m., easing slightly during daytime hours, and then peaking around 6 p.m., that makes for an around-the-clock job.
Since Ontario’s energy is run as a market, the IMO technicians are constantly negotiating with the different utilities to get the right amount of energy coursing through the grid, said IMO spokesperson Terry Young.
Young explained that in the wholesale electricity market there are price setters-utilities that can simply toss more gas or coal onto the fire-and price takers-nuclear and hydro plants, for instance, who operate best at constant capacity.
The IMO decrees how much power is needed every five minutes. Utilities pitch megawatts at increasing prices into the pot (price takers pitch in first, and price setters last), until the necessary demand is met.
As a result, electricity prices often spike during peak hours, and fall off at other times. At the moment, though, these market rates only apply to large-scale industrial power users.
“Larger users have to become more sophisticated about using electricity,” said Young. But soon, residential customers will have to as well.
Smart meters will be installed in all Ontario homes by 2010. These will measure the time when power is used, and will make residential users pay for it at fluctuating market rates.
