- Sat Jun 11 2011
Extensive media coverage has been given to Ontario’s electrical energy systems not only locally, but globally, for the past several years now.
And with all the excitement around green energy, it’s no surprise that our provincial party leaders have a lot to say about energy as they prepare for the fall election.
Unfortunately not everything they say is true.
Ontario’s Green Energy and Green Economy Act is the most recent step in nearly a decade’s worth of renewable energy policies, and is intended primarily to create green jobs and stimulate the economy, while serving also to benefit the energy sector and the environment.
A 2010 report by ClearSky Advisors — Economic Impacts of Solar Energy in Ontario — noted that the solar energy market creates 12 times more jobs than the nuclear energy market does per unit of energy generated, and 15 times more jobs than coal or natural gas, at one-fourth to one-sixth the cost.
Ontario’s electricity grid is managed by the Independent Electricity System Operator, which involves the delicate balancing of purchasing power from many sources to ensure we always have enough to keep the lights on. The Ontario Clean Air Alliances watches the system operator like a hawk, and has noted that the alternative to purchasing solar energy is the “business as usual” approach of importing coal-fired electricity from the U.S. at prices that typically exceed $1-per-kilowatt/hour and range up to as much as $2.
Ontario’s green energy program doesn’t pay nearly that much, and yet it’s come under terrible fire recently. Small rooftop solar energy systems, which are paid 80.2 cents per kwh, are often blamed as the main culprit in our rising electric bills. Yet Gord Miller, the environmental commissioner of Ontario, reports that those payouts represent less than 0.1 per cent of the energy connected to Ontario’s grid.
Even still, the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario is adamant that it intends to cancel the feed-in-tariff program if elected this fall, and abolish the green energy incentive.
The Kitchener business community has become one of Canada’s leading centres of excellence on solar energy, and is home to manufacturers ARISE Technologies, Photowatt, and Canadian Solar. Milfred Hammerbacher, chief executive officer of Canadian Solar, says that “Canadian Solar has built a world class solar panel factory in Ontario because of the FIT program. The FIT program is responsible for Canadian Solar building its first manufacturing operation outside of China.”
John Hogg founded Green Grid as a reputable local contractor. “We’ve been working hard for 12 years to build a renewable energy business and create jobs to the region,” he says, “and this announcement is going to be ripping all our work out from under us”.
The finance sector in Ontario has already started stepping back from Ontario’s renewable energy market, because the noise around the election has introduced a risk that the market may be deconstructed in the fall. “Every time an announcement like this is made, our business gets stalled,” says Hogg. “Try selling projects when the government is saying you might not have a job in six months. This is very frustrating, and (PC Leader Tim) Hudak has no idea how much damage he is doing.”
Kitchener Mayor Carl Zehr says there are about 1,200 direct jobs in the solar energy industry in and around the Region of Waterloo. “I would be very concerned if the province took any action that could discourage private sector investment in the alternative energy marketplace, resulting in lost jobs,” he says.
So back to the numbers — at 80.2 cents per kwh, solar is cheaper than imported electricity, and it creates more jobs. That money gets paid to Ontario homeowners, who spend the money on groceries and commodities and contribute to the local economy.
The Ontario Sustainable Energy Association notes that this money tends to circulate a minimum of seven times in the local economy before disappearing in tax levies or imports, so the total cost to the government has an impact of one-seventh of the ticket price — so, in real economic terms, that 80.2 cents/kwh Ontario pays for solar energy is more like 11.5 cents/kwh, which is less than the 13 cents per kilowatt/hour paid by the average Ontario consumer.
It would seem that solar is not only cheaper than imports, but that it’s also cheaper than business as usual.
Ontario’s Green Energy and Green Economy Act is as much about economy as it is about the environment. John Hogg reminds us, “FIT is an economic stimulus program. Cancelling it is not economic leadership, it’s regression, in a terrible way.”
Derek Satnik, a professional electrical engineer, is managing director of Mindscape Innovations of Kitchener, and volunteers with 10 different non-profit groups in the green building and green energy industries.
Retrieved from http://www.therecord.com/opinion/columns/article/545814--green-energy-act-is-saving-us-money
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