I did have a quick look at this, this morning. I think the market value for additional electricity is zero, and earlier it was negative priced which I don't understand why hydro is still going? I suppose a small part is in Northern Ontario not servable by Nuclear but it seems like alot.
Almost all of Ontario's sources are on either fixed-rate contracts or long-term compensation agreements with the OEB. This is one of the major issues with our system, our use of the market is primarily to broker imports and exports.
Hydro will go to satisfy demand, it is used to follow load on top of nuclear. So any demand above nuclear will typically be met with hydro.
The market price is exactly what it sounds like, the going rate for a given MWh of electricity at that time, not additional electricity. It means that buying from Ontario (in reality, taking excess Ontario wind) would have no cost, and of course it had no cost because nobody wanted it, which tanked the market value. That's how the system works. If there's demand, the price will come up, but wind tends to produce out of phase with demand.
Ignoring the whole solar FIT thing
Aye, but we can't, because that, and the wind LRP contracts, is what really screwed up the system and tanked market value (mostly wind).
if people could get sell home produced power at the peak demand or "buy" at the surplus production times it could make renewables much more effective.
Yes, in a truly market-based system. But, as I noted, with the current market values, that's not going to be viable, based on those current prices. We'd also have to make changes to allow end users to participate as market constituents, not as end users/consumers like they do presently, which would be some new regulation.
A fellow I work with used to work at the Bruce nuclear plant and on peak demand days they would fire up their diesel back up power generators to feed into the grid! It made them money, so why not I guess.
That sounds a bit out-there. Every kWh produced at the Bruce site is paid $0.077/kWh presently and it was $0.067/kWh previously. Bruce diesel gensets (which are emergency power) wouldn't get paid a premium. There's no way a diesel genset at those prices would make money. Now of course, they do test the backup systems regularly, but my understanding from when I toured the site was that the big backups for Bruce, which are large 20+MW units, are Rolls Royce Jet turbines (which I saw with my own eyes) but they may have some smaller diesel units closer to the main buildings, but again, they wouldn't turn a profit, nor would they produce meaningful power, they are meant to run pumps and cooling systems, not power a grid.
Every kWh fed into the grid from a power plant is monitored by the IESO, and there's no separate entry for "standby diesel gensets" in the Bruce section of the IESO data for the site
Any output above and beyond a unit's rated power would show as an artifact (above rated power) for wherever it was connected. And again, because this is grid power, on a fixed-rate contract, there's no financial incentive to do it.
I'm sure it gets a bit complicated to have 10's of thousands of electricity producers but that's what computers are for. People having home storage also helps the grid as well, as the peak loading should stay lower.
Would depend on the weather and the state of those resources, which is why I said that the grid operator would really need to know the status of those units to properly utilize them. Peak loads often happen when we have hot and cold spells as solar rolls off or before it rolls on, but particularly as the evening rolls in and solar collapses and A/C units continue to draw. A bit of storage could help with that, but when it's -30C and still, solar has VERY low capacity in the winter, so you'd have no easy way to charge that storage except from the grid, so what would be the source? That's the kind of stuff that needs to be considered here.
Some places use this concept for household water where municipal water is expensive and/or intermittent and/or the water system can't match peak demands, so each house has storage tanks that can filled from the roof or the municipal system at a slow rate and a house pump to get pressure up. Then in peak demand times people can use their water as they wish at no extra cost to themselves or the water utility. When we were in the Cook Islands we rented houses with these systems and they work quite well. The home owners asked that we didn't waste water as it was the dry season and they had to buy more water until the next rain, but that's part of controlling demand to match supply. I didn't ask if people could run their water meters backwards and pump back into the municipal system, which could cause issues with water quality, but with electricity its less of a problem.
And that may very well work there, but I don't think I'd like that same situation here in Ontario, nor do I believe would most. We want to turn the tap and have water, water our lawns, wash the cars, fill the tub. Same goes with electricity, that's the reason we have massive grids and huge generators, because people have grown accustomed to that convenience. You start with rolling blackouts and demand management and I think you'll find even more outrage than what happened with the GEA rate hikes. Then try charging EV's on top of that? in a place that gets real winter? We are huge consumers of energy, far more than most people realize.