What is the form of the "75 cents for locked in solar contracts" ? That's Canadian, so equivalent to about $500/MWh wholesale US prices?

It's in the nature of R&D investment that you can't have tomorrow's prices for things built today, so if government agreed to pay 75 cents per kWh to drive innovation ten years ago that's what you have to pay now, you can't change your mind now the work is done or else nobody will work with you in future since they've no reason to think they'd get paid.

But $500/MWh does seem high, subsidised UK solar projects from five years ago receive about $80/MWh and new ones proposed this year are expected to pay somewhere in the ballpark of $50-60 (less than consumers pay for electricity but more than unsubsidised providers are paid for it most of the time). So perhaps I just don't understand the basis on which you've got 75 cents.

Yes, their rooftop solar program initially paid 80 cents/kwh under 20 year contracts.

http://www.yourturn.ca/solar/microfit/what-is-the-microfit-p...

Not sure if it counts as innovation when one buys something for far more than it's resold for at a mass-scale.

Oh, a _feed in tariff_. OK, so that's never going to make sense as a wholesale price because it isn't one.

At the end of the day, the system operator covers the program costs via higher prices for electricity consumers (the "global adjustment").

Somehow we've ended up with a "market" price of electricity of 2 cents/kwh, and another 10c/kwh for global adjustments (includes more than just solar and wind subsidies). This is before distribution and transmission.

http://ieso.ca/power-data/price-overview/global-adjustment

I looked into the details[1] here, it seems like a minority of these charges are from wind/solar, eyeballing it, it looks like 50% or so is from Nuclear and hydro, with something like 20% other (mostly nat gas), and 20% wind.

It seems to me like it's essentially a breakdown of marginal vs fixed costs.

1: http://www.ieso.ca/-/media/Files/IESO/Market-Summaries/2020/..., page 21

I just looked at the bottom of the page I linked. Solar looks contributes about 2c/kWh to bills in summer, less in winter because there’s fewer subsidies.

Subsidies are rife, but there’s far less solar energy produced compared to hydro and nuclear. The amount of generation we get for that solar subsidy is peanuts. Nuclear is a pesky beast, because shutting down is incredibly expensive too.

It's a little unclear to me, but I think looking at just output from generation is not fair to solar. Solar has 2000 MW of installed "embedded" capacity. This is cheaper for the grid since it doesn't have to go through as much of the distribution network, meaning it has less efficiency loss and doesn't require transmission capacity. Solar makes up 60% of the embedded capacity[1] (where is the embedded hydro coming from?? lmao). It seems embedded capacity reduced demand by 5TWh in 2019[2]. Comparing this to "actual demand" from the same chart shows that it was roughly 5/140 =~4% of the supplied electricity.

Let's say it was 20% of the GA in the summer and 0% in the winter for a sketchy 10% average of the fees. This doesn't seem too far out of line, although it is obviously a few times higher than the others, but it's not far enough out of whack that I think calling it peanuts is justified.

1: http://ieso.ca/en/Learn/Ontario-Supply-Mix/Ontario-Energy-Ca...

2: http://www.ieso.ca/en/Corporate-IESO/Media/Year-End-Data

The innovation comes after the demand for solar panels is sufficiently stimulated to warrant mass manufacturing.

Firstly, there is no hydroelectric resource left anywhere in the world, where you can build a damn of any significance. Except the Amazon, but that one is basically impossible.

Secondly, what makes this price of 5 cent/kWh justified? Does it allow reinvestment into new nuclear facilities to replace retiring plants? Does it account for proper processing, storage and disposal of all wasted without government subsidies and does it cover the grid maintenance? Currently US stores most nuclear waste in haphazard manner on site of most nuclear power-plants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bay_Project is only half-built. https://www.opg.com/strengthening-the-economy/our-projects/l... just built out another 500MW 5 years ago. There's still a TON of rivers in Canada that hasn't been dammed yet, and lots of room to expand in the areas there are.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5329835/canadas-nuclear-waste-to-... covers waste disposal in Ontario. I'm not sure why government subsidies or not would matter, it's a Crown Corp handling the disposal from the OPG. Hydro One is in charge of transmission, servicing, and fee collection, and seems to be doing just fine after its privitization.

So, in short: It's 9 cents per kWh during the day, and 5 cents per kWh during the night, because that's what it costs.

If day price is twice higher, then that's a totally different price! I am pointing it out because UK price of electricity is higher.

You are right to point out that Canada has untapped hydroelectric resource, it's by far the cheapest electricity.

However it can't supply entire energy need of most nations (some have none), and it is usually tapped wherever possible - people are usually not just sitting around ignoring it.