City Spends Your Hydro Future: PATTON
Ottawa is reaching the end of the line on its electricity capacity. Bulldog commentator Mike Patton says the city should be investing, rather than spending, its Hydro Ottawa dividend:
Reinvest in Hydro Ottawa or Run Out of Gas
Mike Patton is the former communications director for Mayor Larry O’Brien and a Conservative activist.
– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Fact: 1. renewable electricity is cheaper than other sources.
2. the city owns large roofs
3. OREC (Ottawa Renewable Energy Co-operative) has been making money for its investors (I am one) using only renewable sources such as leasing school roofs.
What is the problem in increasing capacity? It is unexplained.
How much of that $20M invested a few years ago when OC Transpo started talking about electric buses would have meant no need to buy huge gas-fueled generators to charge said buses?
It demonstrates two things clearly. Different divisions of the city and its fully owned subsidiaries don’t talk to each other and “planning” is virtually a foreign concept within the City. If they can’t even plan properly internally, how in the name of God can we expect them to do a good job externally? Oh, that’s right! I forgot that they have the developers to take care of planning for them. My bad!
Andrew, I too am a member of and investor in OREC.
The reasons for the failure to increase capacity are myriad, but they start with self interest. The monopolies, set up and protected by the province and its municipalities, want to protect their turf. They create policies with impossible, not just financially, but physically too, barriers for independent producers of power. They present the illusion of cooperating, whilst insisting that the independent power producers push on a rope.
Good post. Not including the plans for electric cars for everyone, plus electric buses and garbage trucks, plus having heat pumps and electric furnaces in new homes past 2030, the initiative to make N. Kanata Research Park a world leader in AI (as stated by the Feds, Province and City) requires a bloody huge investment in electrical generation and distribution. Much more than the gas turbines needed to power the electric buses. The Website enclosed has the scope of what is needed – it is mind boggling
For fun, ask ChatGPT the following question – you will be astounded by the answer. There is an initiative in Kanata to do research and develop an Artificial Intelligence search engine. How much electricity is needed to create a workable search engine like yourself
ChatGPT