Ontario: The Road to Off-Coal Is Paved with Speed Bumps⁎

In 2003, the government of Ontario pledged to retire all coal-fired generation by 2007, primarily for environmental and health reasons. At the time, coal-fired generation accounted for 25 percent of the province’s installed generation capacity. Removing and replacing such a significant portion of the province’s capacity involves many financial and technical challenges. These include procuring adequate alternative supply, the financial costs of a zero coal supply mix, reliability issues, and understanding the impact of the policy on the province’s environment, health, electricity system, and economy. Progress has been made, and there are no signs that the policy will be abandoned; however, the complexities encountered resulted in the deadline being pushed back to 2014.