The Crown corporation that operates the electricity market in Ontario says the amount of wind generation in Southern Ontario is up over the last few months.
But don't expect your bill to go down as a result.
Chuck Farmer, director of public affairs with the Independent Electricity System Operator, says 1,880 gigawatt hours were generated in March and April compared to 1,260 gigawatt hours during the same period last year.
Farmer says the cost of producing wind energy is cheap and allows more flexibility to meet either higher or lower demand and avoid interruptions.
"Wind energy is actually really controllable. So, when the wind is blowing and those generators are working, we're actually able to dispatch those in order to manage the generation so that it balances with demand and that provides a lot of value to our electricity system," Farmer says.
Farmer says consumers get some breaks with wind power but it doesn't have much of an impact on lowering rates.
"When we're generating from one resource type such as wind, which is non emitting, that means that something else isn't running and so you do get off-sets in the system in that situation," says Farmer.
Farmer says the increased wind output means cleaner air because wind turbines don't produce emissions.
"The energy that we generate from our wind facilities don't create any emissions and if we're generating increased energy from wind that means we're not utilizing other parts of our energy generating system such as emitting resources like natural gas," says Farmer.
Farmer says wind power accounts for about 11% of the province's generating capacity.
Nuclear, hydroelectric and natural gas are some of the other components.
