WITH THE ENERGY SITUATION in Ontario in a state of flux, the pulp and paper industry stands to benefit from the current situation. A hot topic during the Energy II session, sponsored by the Energy Co…
WITH THE ENERGY SITUATION in Ontario in a state of flux, the pulp and paper industry stands to benefit from the current situation. A hot topic during the Energy II session, sponsored by the Energy Committee was deregulation of the energy sector and unbundling of services offered by these companies in Ontario.
“Offering the unbundling of services will make for better options for the customer,” said Paul Vlahos, Ontario Energy Board. The landscape has been complexly changed, according to Vlahos. Ontario Hydro, which serviced the province for 90 years, no longer exists.
Ontario Hydro formally ceased operation on April 1, 1999, and was replaced by a number of successor companies. The deregulation of this sector and the introduction of competition will offer competition that will mean better prices and more control for the consumer.
Because the pulp and paper industry is one of the single largest consumers of electricity, it stands to benefit from the new structure in the energy sector.
“There’s still a lot of uncertainty out there in the Ontario market, but once we get beyond that and we really do have the market open, there are opportunities that are out there,” said Brent Stajkowski, Ontario Power Generation.
“We do expect that in the future, as the markets come open, that there will be some dampening on the volatility that exists currently,” Stajkowski added.
Unbundling, the separation of various services offered by gas and electricity companies such as sales, storage, transmission, and delivery so customers may search for the best option possible. This is a change from which “Ancillary services are the glue that hold the electricity industry together,” said William K. Marshall, New Brunswick Power Corporation.
With the change in the format, electricity will have a language of its own, according to Stajkowski, and people will have to become fluent with the new terminology to survive.
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