A stakeholder analysis of investments for wind power electricity generation in Ontario

Pejman Bahramian, Glenn Jenkins (jenkins@econ.queensu.ca) and Frank Milne

No 1442, Working Paper from Economics Department, Queen's University

Abstract: This study uses an ex-post evaluation of the grid-connected wind projects in Ontario, Canada, to quantify the stakeholder impacts of such renewable energy projects. Our study includes a financial, economic and stakeholder analysis of these wind farms. The analysis sheds light on the distributional impacts that arise when there is a significant gap between the incentives created by the financial price paid for electricity generation and the economic value of the electricity generated. The analysis shows that the negotiated power purchase agreements (PPAs) have resulted in a negative outcome for the economy in all circumstances. It is found that the present value of the economic costs is at least three times the present value of the economic benefits, including the global benefits from the reduced CO2 emissions. This loss is borne by all the stakeholders of the electricity system, except the private owners of the wind farms. The losers are primarily the electricity consumers followed by the governments. The Ontario Electricity Rebate (OER) programme, which is financed by increased government borrowing, has the effect of transferring a large share of the costs incurred to promote investments in wind power to future generations of taxpayers in Ontario.

Keywords: economic analysis; electricity; Ontario; wind power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D61 O55 Q42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2020-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-ppm and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econ.queensu.ca/sites/econ.queensu.ca/files/wpaper/qed_wp_1442.pdf First version 2020 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:qed:wpaper:1442

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper from Economics Department, Queen's University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Babcock (babcockm@queensu.ca).