Following is the original text of a letter to the Ottawa Citizen from Dick Bakker, CEO of the Ottawa South Green Party EDA. The letter published March 4, 2009 was edited because of space limitations. The full original text is included here.
Re: McGuinty’s mighty wind.
Randall Denley, Sunday March 1, 2009
The proposed Green Energy Act (GEA) is the start of a fix to Ontario’s electrical albatross. Rather than focus on hot buttons like home energy audits, windmills and bureaucratic deregulation the public should be looking at the intent of the Act and where similar efforts have been successful.
As a Green Party member I am quite pleased to give credit where credit is due and put partisan views aside for a moment. I am not great supporter of Messer’s McGuinty and Smitherman, but I am fully behind them on this.
What is the state of our present electrical system? Taxpayer subsidized consumers, nuclear overruns/underproduction, never-ending debt retirement charges, centralized power generation ensuring 10-20% transmission power loss, and dirty coal plants. What to do? How will Ontario get reliable estimates for new nuclear or coal plants in this climate of tight credit? Who will deal with any cost overruns? The taxpayer of course! Again!
The GEA is an omnibus Act intended to tilt Ontario’s energy production from big centralized power facilities towards a decentralized model. The Act calls for a plethora of Renewable options; bio-mass, bio-gas, geothermal, bio-fuel, tidal, run-of-river hydro, co-generation, wind and solar. It encourages Co-ops, native bands and property owners to become generators. Municipal, building and environmental regulations are to be streamlined, enabling speedier development of Renewables. Conservation will finally be a core objective of all government.
Feed-In Tariffs (FIT) are a key component. FIT’s are a method to kick-start the Renewable sector on a ‘performance only’ basis; no money is paid without delivered energy! Fixed rates are guaranteed for up to 20 years and tailored to the generation technology, with guaranteed grid access for the producer. This encourages smallscale production, the development of a distributed grid and localized employment. As of 2007 over 44 jurisdictions had implemented FIT’s; Ontario is the first in North America.
The GEA is based on Germany’s Green Energy Act and Feed-In Tariff success. Over 8 years Germany added 31,000 MW of NEW Renewable Energy to their electrical grid. This in a country with a higher population density and fewer natural resources than Canada! The sector employs over 280,000 and is the world’s leading renewable technology exporter. The incremental cost of this capacity has added only 36Euro/year ($50Cdn) to the average German consumer. In 2000, Germany’s renewable energy share was 6%, growing to 15% in 2008; and growth is accelerating FIT rates are regularly lowered to reflect industry learning curves and cost reductions.
Germany has introduced more new renewable power production in 8 years than Ontario generates from all of its nuclear stations, which were built (and refurbished) over the last 40 years! Renewable costs drop every year, input costs are near zero!
Wind and solar now deliver less than 1% of Ontario’s production. What was it 2 years ago? World wind production has been growing at an annual rate of 30-40% for 20 years? Solar has been growing at a rate of 50-70% over the same time! It is time for North America to catch up.
Wind is intermittent, but it is always blowing somewhere and the cost of wind power has been dropping for years. Hydro is a natural partner technology to wind and Quebec’s hydro grid should be interconnected with Ontario’s to provide the natural backup. Solar of course, is only available when the sun shines, this happens to match the point in the day when we have peak energy demand. Therefore, every new solar electric capacity reduces the need for expensive peak time production. The other technologies mentioned have different production profiles, and can each add to the electrical mix in different ways.
Smitherman is probably wise to back off on the house Energy Audit requirement. This is not the time to get realtors and house sellers upset when they are focused on dropping home values. The Audit provision is an excellent means to get home owners to take energy conservation seriously. There are other ways to get this done that will not directly raise the hackles of a stressed out Realty industry. In order to get this law passed the government may need to placate widespread political opposition, they can give in a bit, but not on the core intention of the Act.
Otherwise, I do not see significant changes needed. The bylaw, building code and environmental regulations must be tailored to favour small localized energy production, rather than the present indirect reinforcement of large centralized and expensive plants.
The alternative to small renewable projects scattered across the province would be more large Nuclear/Coal/Gas facilities with government guaranteed insurance and taxpayer funded cost overruns. The Ontario Government is still planning to proceed with nuclear expansion. This is wrong, expensive, dangerous and inefficient.
The Green Energy Act is the start of necessary improvements to the Ontario electrical system. Let’s give McGuinty and Smitherman credit for this move. There is a lot of work and opportunity before Ontario as this Act gets implemented. More ‘Work’ and ‘Opportunity’ is what Ontario needs today.
If we can get a few years of good growth similar to Germany’s experience, the justification for nuclear expansion will wither.
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