BY JONATHAN JENKINS ,QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU
Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak revealed a major plank of his energy policy Tuesday when he vowed to scuttle the $7 billion Samsung renewable energy deal and the feed-in-tariff pricing program.
“This is a shady deal that Dalton McGuinty signed behind closed doors, that is going to drive up hydro bills even more for seniors and families,” Hudak said. “It is odious, it is wrong, and I will end the deal.”
Hudak said he would honour existing FIT contracts, which pay renewable energy producers up to 80 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity, but wouldn’t offer any new deals.
Instead, he said he would seek cheaper deals through a competitive process.
Tubing the Samsung deal is much bigger promise though as the Korean multinational issued a statement saying it expected any future government to honour the existing agreement and drew a sharp reaction from both the Liberals and the renewable energy community.
“Look, to walk away from a contract is something that I don’t think would be responsible at this point in time, when that contract is creating thousands of jobs across this province, and helping us move out of dirty coal to create cleaner sources of power,” Energy Minister Brad Duguid said.
In a statement, the Canadian Wind Energy Association said Hudak is wrong to blame renewable energy for recent spikes in the cost of electricity.
“The recent price hikes we have seen in Ontario have nothing to do with the prices being paid for new wind energy generation under the Green Energy Act, as only a very small number of projects are operating at this time,” CANWEA president Robert Hornung said.
The January 2010 deal between Samsung and Ontario commits the company to construct 2,500 megawatts of wind and solar power and four factories to manufacture turbines and solar panels, creating 16,000 direct and indirect jobs. Three of those factories are now under way, involving 1,800 workers.
In exchange for the investment, Ontario promised to provide grid access to Samsung when its power plants came online, and to pay an “economic development adder” over and above the FIT price for the power.
Energy is shaping up to be a key battleground in the Oct. 6 provincial election, as both Hudak’s Tories and the New Democrats have been hammering the government over rising electricity prices.
The government has countered that prices are up because of overdue reinvestments in the aging grid and its efforts to encourage renewable energy as a replacement for burning coal, scheduled to be phased out by 2014.
The memorandum of understanding says the company will:
— invest $7 billion;
— build 2,000 megawatts of wind energy and 500 megawatts of solar energy;
— build four factories over six years to assemble the components for the electrical generation;
— create 1,440 direct jobs;
In exchange, Ontario will:
— ensure access to the grid for the new generation;
— pay Samsung an “economic develop adder” to the price of electricity it provides, over and above the FIT price;
Ontario said the deal would create 16,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Retrieved from http://www.torontosun.com/2011/05/10/hudak-vows-to-scrap-7b-samsung-green-energy-deal-2
* color and emphasis added by the blogger
No comments:
Post a Comment