To the Editor,
The Ontario government has tabled Bill 165 with the intention of requiring existing customers of Enbridge Gas to pay for new gas pipelines into new housing developments[1], thereby overruling a decision of the Ontario Energy Board (OEB). [2] Our MPP Stéphane Sarrazin is a member of the committee that will review the bill next month. I have written to him with these comments.
I value the Ontario Energy Board’s role in making energy as reliable and low-cost for customers as possible. I heartily approve of the Ontario Energy Board decision that new infrastructure to put methane gas in homes should be paid for up front by developers, rather than paid off over about 40 years by existing Enbridge customers through higher rates.
The Ontario Energy Board made this decision in response to an application from Enbridge regarding gas rates. A major focus of its decision was how the transition to renewable energy sources will impact the future of the gas system. The OEB concluded that climate change policy is driving an energy transition away from methane gas to electricity, and that this transition gives rise to a stranded asset risk. Here is a quote from the decision:
“The energy transition poses a risk that assets used to serve existing and new Enbridge customers will become stranded because of the energy transition… The stranded asset risk affects all aspects of Enbridge’s system and its proposals for capital spending on system expansion and system renewal.”
The government should not help Enbridge expand its pipeline system into new subdivisions at the cost of everyone else. The new homeowners probably won’t even want to heat with gas. Homes using cold climate electric heat pumps would cost less to heat than those burning methane. In addition, electric induction stoves can boil water faster than gas without introducing poisonous methane gas into homes.
The Ontario Energy Board ruling could in fact make building new homes more affordable because they could be built to use only one type of energy infrastructure, electricity, and not require a second. New homes could be built more quickly by forgoing gas lines and installing heat pumps and induction stoves instead.
The world has agreed to net-zero fossil fuel consumption by 2050. Energy transition is under way. The costs of any new gas infrastructure should be borne by those who will use it, today, and not by all the rest of us for the next 40 years.
In sum, the Ontario Energy Board’s decision will benefit existing gas customers, new homeowners and the environment. Only the gas company would reverse it. It would be a mistake to overturn the OEB decision.
[1] The OEB decision excludes projects under the current phase of the Natural Gas Expansion Program from its requirements for new small-volume customer connections.
[2] Ontario Energy Board Decision and Order, December 21, 2023 chrome-extension: https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/backgrounder-EGI-EB-2022-0200-20231221-en.pdf
Lynn Ovenden
Casselman
