[tekstar]

Ontario power is mostly from renewable sources already, but yes it is highly mismanaged.

You can see the hourly Ontario energy use by source here:

http://www.ieso.ca/power-data

One of the worst inefficiencies of the Ontario grid is that we run an abundance of energy during parts of the day, during which we dump electricity to the US at extremely cheap rates. If that electricity were offered at the same rate to Ontario residents (who are paying for it!) you would see residents retrofit homes with dual-fire gas/electric heating and other utilities. Or if we had a means to store that electricity it would cover the highest-use parts of the day (approximately 3 hours later) where we still fire natural gas to cover demand.

[Scoundreller]

Totally. Why am I burning natural gas when I could have an rPi connected space heater dial it up?

Or push my freezer into deep-freeze mode.

Or my water heater tank into super-heat mode? I already have a thermostatic valve anyway.

Or have my dishwasher start whenever it wants between midnight and 6AM? All I can do is start now or in 4 hours, meanwhile these might be terrible times.

[VintageCool]

Is there a minimum rate at which they produce hydro power? That seems like a great option to spin down hydro power during those parts of the day, store the water, and then spin the hydro plants back up at peak load.

[Scoundreller]

About a quarter of it is from Niagara Falls, ie: run of the river.

The amount that they divert varies by time: they want to keep the falls nice during the day, but divert more at night.

And a lot of dams are dual use: controlling water levels while generating electricity, so it really depends on weather. When it’s dry they can maybe do this, but when it’s wet, they gotta be careful. Or vice versa depending on which side it’s raining more on.

[tekstar]

Pretty sure in overage situations the water runs over the dam and nothing is stored in Niagara but I may be mistaken.