CACOR Live | Jake Brooks | Achieving reliability in a Net Zero Ontario electrical grid. | Jan 22, 2025 13:30

You are invited to a scheduled CACOR Live meeting.

Speaker: Jake Brooks

Topic: Achieving reliability in a Net Zero Ontario electrical grid.

Time: Jan 22, 2025 13:30 Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Meeting ID: 895 1632 7629

Passcode: 219052

Although low carbon sources of bulk electricity are becoming increasingly straightforward and economic to source, ensuring grid reliability is more complex than simply supplying bulk power. Focused attention will be needed for most power systems to ensure continued and affordable delivery of the specialized grid services necessary for delivering reliability throughout the process of de-carbonization. For planning and policy purposes it is important to ensure that current and comprehensive information is available on the options for maintaining electric system reliability in each region as carbon intensive resources are eliminated from the power system.  Relatively detailed information is important for both decision makers and the public because the challenges of maintaining reliability during de-carbonization are specific to each grid control area and are evolving rapidly with the advent of new technology.  Focusing on Ontario as an example, during 2024 Pollution Probe fostered the creation of the Net Zero Reliability Initiative in part to make sure that all available expertise, technology and procurement options are understood and fully considered as Ontario plans its approach to maintaining grid reliability.  To what extent can new tools and technology achieve reliability objectives without increasing the carbon or financial burdens on Ontario ratepayers and citizens?  A range of management opportunities and technical options were identified for meeting most if not all reliability needs while reducing carbon emissions. Although each power system is unique, many of the insights from this Ontario-based research can be adapted for use in other jurisdictions.

Bio:

Jake Brooks is an energy consultant based in the Toronto area. He served as the Executive Director of the Association of Power Producers of Ontario (APPrO) for more than 30 years from 1990 until 2022. He was also one of the original founders of the organization, which was known as the Independent Power Producers’ Society of Ontario when it was originally established in 1986. He played a leading role in the early development and growth of IPPSO / APPrO and helped it become one of the leading advocacy organizations for power generation in Canada. In 2004 when Ontario’s electricity market was opened to competition, the organization restructured and renamed itself as APPrO, the Association of Power Producers of Ontario, to recognize the new circumstances.

APPrO played a role in a wide range of public policy processes in Ontario’s electricity sector over the last 30 years, which saw the establishment of wholesale power markets, the orderly phase-out of coal-fired power, the integration of renewables and clean power, and the development of new models for relationships between customers and the grid.

Jake Brooks served as Co-Lead on the Pollution Probe project.

Jake also oversaw the evolution of the organization’s annual conference (the Canadian Power Conference) from 1989 through 2021, and the magazine “IPPSO FACTO” which was one of the leading periodicals covering electrical power generation in Canada during the same period.