MAKING THE SHOE FIT ENGINEERING
Update 2020 Nelson hydro rate increase.
Nelson is unique, the only city in western Canada with its own hydro generation and distribution, our own money machine going back to 1897. Electric rates set by city although the rural customers are protected by the BC Utilities Commission have rubber stamped all increases by proxy (trusted them). Until this year, questions were being asked, The BCUC wanted the city to provide complete supporting evidence for the rate increase, they rolled it back 0%, first time in recent history. I have been very uncomfortable with the city not answering my questions and inability to follow hydro budgets.
Update Dec 2018 its my contention the misinformation resulting from the Nelson solar garden showing payback in 12 to 15 years has resulted in the Columbia Basin Trust allocating $900,000 for community building alternate energy systems one has already been installed from outrageous calculations in my view
Update: from the city of Penticton studying a community solar project :
5. Build a city solar garden: This concept was studied in 2017. It was determined that without 50% grant funding there was no business case to proceed.
The 2018 Kelowna solar project pressured by the green lobby had Fortis create a similar project to Nelson. Their project required anyone opting in to pay a premium of 23 cents/kWh for solar.
The BCUC denied it stating it was not in the public interest, there were no savings and no material GHG reduction. The city pays far more for wholesale Fortis power they do not have their own generation.
In Nelson with its own hydro generation making power for far less than Fortis wholesale the Nelson hydro engineer comes up with a business case for the solar garden?
Classic engineering, to avoid liability, get another engineer to create your project justification. Never mind our Nelson hydro engineer's bio claims he did his first solar system around year 2000 and has experience with other systems. But no signature from him.
All Nelson hydro customers FULL retail for power there is no premium rate for solar to those opting in, its subsidized by everyone else. Green washing Nelson Community Solar garden. Cross subsidization something a monopoly utility is to avoid. Whereby one class of consumer pays more for power thereby subsidizing another class. The reason we have Utility commissions, to avoid cross subsidization. Nelson is an exception, the BC Utilities Commission has no jurisdiction, its mayor and council who set rates. Although half of Nelson hydro customers are not in the city and they do come under the BCUC.
Fraud Law and Legal Definition. Fraud is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage.
Solar projects have a business case if they payback in 25 years, the life expectancy of solar panels.
The Nelson Community Solar Garden never had a business case but one was provided to city council.
I met with Mr. Love, PEng manager of Nelson hydro, knowing there was no business case. I asked him if the city was a business, he replied it was. I then said there has to be a business case for the solar garden, he replied it won't proceed without one.
Like a good engineer, arms length no liabilities, he found a consultant to give him a business case.
The same engineer for the Kimberley SunMine at the time the largest project in western Canada.
I have both engineering reports, from the same engineer, entirely different, how can that be?
The SunMine project collected data on site for over 2 years from multiple instruments, and still failed to meet its annual projection for power. The Nelson site collected NO data.
It appears to me the computer program worked backwards, a 25 year payback was chosen and then data entered that met the criteria.
Solar panels age making less power every year, its called degredation. That word appears 22 times in the SunMine report, its also Assumption No. 2 at the bottom of the financials.
That never appears in the Nelson report. No degredation, full power for the lifetime.
The SunMine report used Canada's inflation rate of 1.8% the Nelson report 3.5%, that makes payback happen faster.
The SunMine shows running costs, Nelson $0.
The SunMine admin costs assumption #5 2.5% Nelson $0
The SunMine has a column "Other Costs" increasing annually, none seen for NCSG.
Were these mistakes? same computer program, same engineer, totally different inputs. Using the SunMine inputs there wasn't a business case.
the shoe doesn't fitHow does this fit with Engineering Ethics? click here
In the Media the statement is made Nelson hydro guarantees
payback in 12 to 15 years, the engineer can't even make 25 year payback work without incorrect data.
Nelson hydro sells power to BC Hydro, the entire year of solar garden power if sold to BCH under their standing offer contract purchase would earn about $400. Business case payments about $24,000 per year for 25 years and any and all future costs until the systems self destructs and solar panels become toxic hazardous waste. Solar panel life expectancy - 25 years, only 22 to go.
SunMine Financial Report and Nelson Solar Garden Report
Below the Nelson report, same engineer, same computer program but no degredation, no running costs, no other costs.
Their reply as follows:
This tool "Long term Financial Balance" has indeed a parameter "Annual Production reduction" (expressed in %/year).
Here, if you click the button "Graphs" - "Table", you will see a column for the sold energy yearly revenue.
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How did the engineer miss this for the Nelson project?
Did the city council ever see a corrected engineers report? Why did the city of Nelson expert Nelson Hydro's manager and engineer not correct this? I brought it to their attention!
9. For the System One project, the distribution system losses and costs for moving energy from the solar array to the customer metering point will not be deducted from the generation credit.
Let me decode that for you.
Power measured at the panels can be up to 10% more than at the metering point. further assisting the appearance of a business case when there isn't one.
And the ultimate in that engineering report--- "not all costs are shown"
How does city council move forward with a project when not all costs are shown?
How does city council move forward with a project when not all costs are shown?
ALL of this information was in an email last Sept. to the Alex Love manager of hydro, Kevin Cormack city manager and all councilors. And of course I sent many other emails never seen by council to Mr. Love, I call this evidence, he calls it wasting his and his staffs time and harassing.
One of Mr. Loves emails to me says "regarding our verbal conversation downtown your chat suggesting the consultant is either incompetent or ignorant is pretty strong language and I will be telling him where that chat is coming from".
What I said was " your hired gun gave you a business
case showing a 25 year payback "
an excerpt from the Kimberley SunMine Business Plan
a business plan is built around conservative assumptions and due diligence that reflect the risk tolerance of a public body accountable to the electorate for the use of public money.
was the Nelson taxpayer respected, protected by our expert, we are the ones paying.
The public body can only make their best decisions
from the information their expert supplies...
Did the Nelson city council get a business plan built
around conservative assumptions?
Did this respect city council?
City council has to be confident in what their expert
brings them.
I think this city deserves better.
There is NO data to support a business case. I gave Mr. Love and his consultant the years of known solar data for Nelson, Mr. Love told me it was irrelevant?
The consulting engineers report is full of errors.
The project was to be fully funded by those opting in, its not.
Nelson hydro ratepayers are paying full retail for this worthless solar power when we should be reaping the profits of selling cleaner greener waterpower now just spilling down the river with those profits.
The solar garden will increase the cities carbon footprint, nothing is cleaner than water power.
UPDATE May 2017 The SunMine is on its face economically, this was predictable,
the mayor and city council of Kimberley are looking for a buyer for the SunMine??? Is there something we don't know?
The city financials for 2016 for the SunMine show it made after expenses $134,000 in 2016.
The $5.65M (that we know of) project business case would be payments of $360,000 annually for 25 years. The city of Kimberley is only in for $2M all the rest is "free" (yours and mine) subsidy money. They say they have to make $216,000 annually to break even, so what is their plan? Will they sell it to Warren Buffett? He made his billions this way, he might get it for say $1.5M all the remaining $4M taxpayers money is free a gift. He could dismantle it and take it to Arizona where the sun actually shines and they have a heavy air conditioning load in summer and burn coal for power.
If you look further it gets pared down to only about $12,500 income, I don't pretend to know their bookeeping tactics. And apparently the city put in even more money, its shown as up to
$2.3M we know of, some hint of the city paving budget for one year disappearing into the SunMine project also.....what is the truth. The public thinks this makes money, it just keeps the story going that solar works in BC and keeps picking the public pockets. German is another story that keeps this up, the reality....search "german solar failure". These are hard to overcome and stop the bleed.
Update Jan 2018, the city now has online public data, sort of , its password locked you really can't get information that means anything, like monthly reports, panel level data, timelapse etc. I asked for them to reveal this they will not.
Above we see a winter picture of the solar garden, the front row of panels shade the back row.
From Sept till Jan. it didn't make enough power for ONE average home.
$500,000 wasted and more to come
Even MORE mis engineering click here
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| As this consultants report showed a 25 year payback only by virtue of flawed inputs, the bigger lie is as above a slide from a Nelson Hydro public presentation and in dozens of publications the statement is made "hydro guarantees a payback in 12 to 15 years". |
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| The above spreadsheet using the 1.8%CPI used for the SunMine the $2000 annual O&M costs ommitted from the Nelson solar garden, and the actual power earned from one year of data. After 25 years the solar power cost is 28.5c/kWh while inflation took Nelson hydro power rates using the CPI up to 12.88c/kWh. This does not include the capital cost debt repayment. The toothfairy doesn't pay for the solar garden, taxpayers do. Using the $339,000 cost they tell us about to be conservative that is $23,000 annual payments for 25 years, that adds .35c/kWh to the known 28.5c making solar power costs around 64c/kWh. They said in the media solar power would reach parity in 7 years, there would be a payback in 10 or 15 years. I wonder if any engineer has read this? Their code of ethics requires them to report any thing they might see amiss that might appear to be of some concern to their peers and professional organization. The big LIE |
the emperor has no clothes
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