Manitoba Hydro

[Glenn99]

Who would have thought a thread about a electric utility would bring about such passionate responses?

[bomberjet]

2 POV's from me.

One POV. Hydro hiring a CEO who is based from the private sector is a strategic type hire. Not just promoting another bureaucrat. I do not want this person to privatize Hydro. But use his experience from the private sector to "right the ship" at Hydro. I am 100% against privatization. But want this person to run hydro a little more like a private business and not a crown corp, using experience to make the right decisions to bring money in to Hydro.

Second POV. This would include building Conawapa and advancing work on other generation projects. In the news article about the new CEO, it mentioned how large scale industrial projects can not be connected to the provincial grid, because it can not support said industries. Hydro has no capacity at this point to be selling anything at a large scale, especially in winter.

Modernize old plants. Build new plants (Conawapa and Gillam Island would be the largest plants Hydro can build). More wind, more solar, more alternative types of power.

Beyond that, I believe it is up to private sector to develop things like small, modular nuclear plants to provide power in remote locations. Etc, Etc. That is not for Hydro to steer IMO.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by FactaNV

I was simply talking about selling to SK. Why sell two provinces away when you can sell to our neighbours to bring their prices down? SK can do whatever they want with it, export, use as is, whatever. You immediately spin it into some fantasy where SK can pull a Muskrat Falls situation. I'm not talking about selling to AB, I'm talking about selling to SK. If you hate us so much why do you bother frequenting this page? I'm also waiting for an answer on how MB Hydro is inferior to the private companies in the Maritimes, a claim you made and did nothing back up.

Nice edit to hide your slag against Manitobans.

Boy oh boy, Manitobans are so thin skinned. Take criticism as hate. And lacking awareness of Canadian geography too. FYI; Newfoundland is not part of the Maritimes.

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by Glenn99

Who would have thought a thread about a electric utility would bring about such passionate responses?

It's honestly good that it is. There is great potential for MB in it. The world is electrifying. If every vehicle on the road converts to EV, the grid capacity needs to increase by 50% to 200% (triple). EVERYWHERE.

It takes 10 HOURS to build an EV.
It takes 1-3yrs to build a wind farm.
It takes 10yrs to build a hydro dam.
It took USA ~13yrs on avg to build their last 30 Nuclear plants.

Power demand is going to skyrocket faster than people imagine over the next 5-10yrs. If you need fast power expansion, you need wind. And MB not only has 30gw+ of it, we have the unique ability to balance it with Cedar Lake Pumped Hydro Storage for less intermittency.

(Solar capacity factors are too low in MB due to only 2,200 sunshine hours per year. So solar is out, here anyway. It'll be huge in Cali/AZ/NV/NM).

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

As much as a lot of what Ozabald has said is wildly incorrect, the "landlocking" argument is valid. However, in no way insurmountable.

What would likely happen is MB would generate and bring power to the SK border via the amazing BiPole 3 map I posted here. Then, transmission would be built off that border to SK for local use, and a thru-line to AB. Either SK would build their own dedicated line to AB, adding a "transmission fee" to the sale to Alberta. Common and expected. Transmission isn't free. Or some joint arrangement between 2 or 3 of the provinces would occur on that transmission line, to prevent stonewalling and gouging like was mentioned.

If I'm MB, I'd likely want some claim on that line, to ensure SK can't screw me. But at the same time, I don't want to put out extra capital to build it. Because, risk. These are valid concerns in utility markets since there's only really 1 way to move the power. It's too cost prohibitive to just start up a new line. Maybe a 30 AB, 30 MB, 40 SK deal would make sense. Not sure. Needs to be negotiated.

But let me remind. AB/SK consume 20gw of power. Small. The nearby US states consume 100gw of power, 5x the amount to sell into and capitalizing on the weak CAD/USD. The real money is south.

Bingo! As you said, that's where the real money is. MB already has a high capacity connection to the US Midwest power grid through Minnesota and US states eager are customers of Canadian hydro power. The political environment though can be dicey for the expansion of power corridors in the US as Hydro Quebec has recently found out trying to expand its transmission capacity to move power from Quebec into Massachusetts. Folks in NH and ME were not playing nice. They lost one battle and had to go all the way to the Maine Supreme Court to one allowed to continue the construction of the Clean Energy Connect Line.

[FactaNV]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

Boy oh boy, Manitobans are so thin skinned. Take criticism as hate. And lacking awareness of Canadian geography too. FYI; Newfoundland is not part of the Maritimes.

We were also talking about NS fella. Perhaps you need to brush up on your reading because I was pretty clearly talking about NS in my response, which I chose to address. So touchy and angry. Jeez.

[borkborkbork]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Hydro hiring a CEO who is based from the private sector is a strategic type hire. Not just promoting another bureaucrat. I do not want this person to privatize Hydro. But use his experience from the private sector to "right the ship" at Hydro. I am 100% against privatization. But want this person to run hydro a little more like a private business and not a crown corp, using experience to make the right decisions to bring money in to Hydro.

Don't hold your breath. Jay Grewal also came from a private sector background. When she was hired everyone was convinced she was brought on to sell off Hydro. She was at Accenture and CIBC World Markets, and during her time at BC Hydro she privatized their back-office operations. If there was some magic private-sector-efficiency wand to be waved, she could have waved it just as well as the new guy

[pspeid]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Hydro hiring a CEO who is based from the private sector is a strategic type hire. Not just promoting another bureaucrat. I do not want this person to privatize Hydro. But use his experience from the private sector to "right the ship" at Hydro. I am 100% against privatization. But want this person to run hydro a little more like a private business and not a crown corp, using experience to make the right decisions to bring money in to Hydro.

That's what I thought too. IMO it's actually good to see the province is able to make decisions like this; based on the skill set needed at the moment rather than party or personal affiliation. I also agree with strongly being against privatization. Having someone able and willing to work within that framework and still apply the most useful "private business" skills is ideal.

[bomberjet]

Ya well Jay is no longer with the company.

I'm not saying there is a magic wand to be waved. The new guys experience sounds well suited to this role. Jay was basically a banker. We'll see what happens..

[drew]

I sense that MB Hydro has some staffing bloat that can be addressed without requiring any kind of privatization.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by FactaNV

We were also talking about NS fella. Perhaps you need to brush up on your reading because I was pretty clearly talking about NS in my response, which I chose to address. So touchy and angry. Jeez.

Please re-read my original comment about the private sector involved in power generation in Canada. I referenced two companies: Emera, which based in Halifax; and Fortis, which is based in St. John's. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are part of Atlantic Canada; though Newfoundland is not part of the Maritimes.

Anyhow, the private sector can play a role in hydro in MB; if the province can remove the ideological blinkers. Emera used to be a Crown called Nova Scotia Power. It was privatized by the NS government in 1992 (which was largest private equity transaction in Canadian history at the time) and became what is known as Emera. It has evolved into a multinational utility company with operations in Canada, US and several countries in the Caribbean. Its annual revenues are greater than MB Hydro.

[Justanothermember]

Originally Posted by FactaNV

Why is your first thought trying to fuck over Manitoba when there could be a mutually beneficial agreement between two friendly provinces? You're such a nice person lol. Thank God you're not in power, you'd run this province or whatever province you're from into the ground.

Oddballs is an anti-Winnipeg/Manitoba troll that crawls out of his hole whenever people have anything positive to say about the city/province. He does it every single time. I guess he has nothing better to do with his time.

[bodaggin]

Just so people don't think I'm making up Manitoba's wind potential numbers. These are ultra-conservative numbers on-lake wind energy potential using Global Wind Atlas at 150m height. Feel free to audit yourself. I believe GWA greatly understates their wind potential too.

Total: 24gw of wind potential. Conservatively.

Most people can't fathom that number, 24,000mw. That's ~4x more than our entire current hydro capacity of ~6,500mw. Just one of those wind farms would rank 2nd largest in the world, of currently operating farms. These are BIG numbers.

MB has a uniqueness with our large shallow lakes. Lake MB is ultra-shallow at only like 10-20ft deep. Lake Winnipegosis is also only 20-30ft deep. And lower Lake Winnipeg is only 30-40ft deep. Shallow water allows for easier construction which means cheaper. Deepwater construction is different and much more expensive. Also, transporting large turbine blades is easier on big open water vs land: no closing roads, no moving powerlines, less nimby's, no agricultural land losses, and again, no land acquisition or royalty deals like onland wind. It's a wide open canvas.

Very few places have the shallow-lake advantage that MB does. It makes us fast and cheap. And again, already located on a splitable Bi-Pole 3. And right beside Grand Rapids dam, convertible into 2000-5000mw of pumped hydro storage for balancing.

[pspeid]

Originally Posted by Justanothermember

Oddballs is an anti-Winnipeg/Manitoba troll that crawls out of his hole whenever people have anything positive to say about the city/province. He does it every single time. I guess he has nothing better to do with his time.

Oddballs. LOL.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by Justanothermember

Oddballs is an anti-Winnipeg/Manitoba troll that crawls out of his hole whenever people have anything positive to say about the city/province. He does it every single time. I guess he has nothing better to do with his time.

Justanothermember is one of those Winnipeggers who's never been anywhere beyond going to "the Lake" and where a trip down to Grand Forks, ND is deemed to be a big international trip. Such a myopic and insular life.

[The Jabroni]

Originally Posted by Justanothermember

Oddballs is an anti-Winnipeg/Manitoba troll that crawls out of his hole whenever people have anything positive to say about the city/province. He does it every single time. I guess he has nothing better to do with his time.

Someone has to stand in for skylar somehow.