by SUSAN MANN
Inadequate energy infrastructure in Ontario is hampering some greenhouse operations’ ability to grow, says a spokesman for the Ontario Greenhouse Alliance.
And some operations are opting to build new facilities in the United States because of energy issues here, says Jan Vanderhout, alliance chair. The alliance is an umbrella organization for Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers and Flowers Canada (Ontario).
Vanderhout made the observations as the Ontario government announced approved applications from greenhouse farms earlier this week under electricity programs offered by the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), which manages the province’s power system.
Greenhouse farmers in the Leamington area are also waiting to hear if there will be upgrades to the Leamington-area transformer station. The upgrades are necessary to facilitate the new greenhouse electricity projects, Vanderhout explains.
But greenhouse growers in Leamington are not the only ones in the province challenged by insufficient energy infrastructure. It’s affecting greenhouse and other industries across all of Ontario, he adds.
Vanderhout says he applied to one of the electricity system operator’s programs but was turned down because the Dundas transformer station near his Hamilton-area greenhouse didn’t have “enough capacity.”
“My application and at least one other was declined because of restraints at the Dundas transformer station,” he says, noting some smaller projects from his area were approved.
“We have some serious infrastructure restrictions in Ontario,” he says. “As a citizen, I’m concerned that’s restricting economic growth in many aspects, not just agriculture.”
Furthermore, inadequate electricity infrastructure isn’t the only problem. Some growers have natural gas line infrastructure in their areas that is too small to meet their needs. Vanderhout says his greenhouse operation would need to invest more than $1 million to upgrade gas lines supplying his farm “that we would never have ownership of.” He explains he would be required to pay for the upgrades if he wants them.
Vanderhout says some larger greenhouse operations are starting to build facilities in the United States, and that’s mainly due inadequate energy infrastructure and partly because of Ontario’s high energy costs.
In Windsor, Tuesday, Ontario Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli announced Cervini Farms, C.L. Solutions and Brunato Farms were each awarded contracts under the IESO’s combined heat and power standard offer program to develop combined heat and power electricity generating facilities for supplying power to the electricity grid.
Amco Farms, a part of Amco Group Canada which is also based in Leamington, recently signed a contract under the IESO industrial electricity incentive program to get a reduced electricity rate until the end of 2024 in return for expanding its existing production facility. The program was recently expanded to include greenhouses, floriculture production, refrigerated warehousing and data processing, and this is the first time greenhouse operations were approved under it. Other eligible sectors under the program are mining, quarrying, oil and gas extraction and manufacturing.
Alexandra Campbell, IESO spokesperson, says there isn’t a flat rate for the electricity reduction under the program. The rate reduction depends on the project and “there’s a complicated formula” to determine it.
The lower rate is only applied to the new portion of the applicant’s business, she says.
The combined heat and power standard offer supports the use of gas-fired electricity generating facilities that use combined heat and power technology, according to the electricity system operator press release. The heat or steam that’s produced is used in the applicant’s facility.
Both programs have been offered previously but “each version has been slightly different,” Campbell says. There were 39 applications under the combined heat and power program totaling about 322 megawatts. Twenty-eight were from the agricultural industry.
The program resulted in 13 contracts being awarded and accepted with nine of those contracts, totaling 57.5 megawatts, coming from the agricultural industry.
For the industrial electricity incentive program, three of the 25 applications were from the agricultural industry. Two of the 15 contracts awarded this year were from agriculture, she says.
Chiarelli says in the release “Ontario’s greenhouse operators are an essential part of Ontario’s economy.” The electricity system operator’s programs “will reduce electricity costs and allow successful proponents to expand production to meet growing demand.”
Vanderhout says the programs are most likely to be used by very large electricity users and particularly by greenhouse operations installing lights for year-round production.
Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers energy and environment coordinator Justine Taylor says only a few growers have moved to year-round production so far but many more would like to go in that direction. “I think it’s really necessary to move to 12-month production to be competitive.” BF
Comments
Why not use solar and burn wood and build Green houses on our reservations to give young people jobs and a better diet instead of building in the uSA?
In response to "Green Houses Up North" http://betterfarming.com/comment/16448#comment-16448
Yes, I agree.
Sustainability is not created by shipping food into a community from far away at huge expense. Rural and Far North need safe, nutritious, affordable food, which usually means grow as much locally as can be achieved.
Instead, 75% of the pre-school children in Nunavut don't eat on any particular day because there is no food in the house. About 66% of families have food insecurity. Some are forced to do their "grocery shopping" at the municipal dump, scavaging for rotten or expired food that had been thrown out.
Growing your own food creates jobs and well being through having a clear purpose in life. Unfortunately, unemployment in rural and Northern communities ranges from 15% to over 90%. No wonder there is rampant substance abuse and suicide.
This bad situation continues to occur in Canada, the 6th richest nation on this planet. No wonder the UN Special Envoy for Aboriginals says that Canada's aboriginals are the worst off of any aboriginal group on the planet.
I have developed a 2 story chicken coop, 10 ft x 10 ft, that can feed chicken to 27 people per year; all run by solar power alone, good for weather from -60 deg C to + 40 deg C. That chicken will go nicely with the greens from your greenhouses. Food for all.
Glenn Black
Small Flock Poultry Farmers of Canada
Ontario Power generation produces electricity with an efficiency of about 30%. The rest of the energy is waste heat pushed into the air or water, causing environmental degradation.
Nuclear power is even worse, for only 0.75% of the nuclear energy in the fuel pellets is used, then the fuel is "spent" and needs to be stored for 300,000 years while it decomposes the other 99.25% of nuclear energy the fuel pellets contain.
Alternatively, agriculture and similar systems that can use low level energy sources (eg. greenhouses) can generate CHP (Combine Heat & Power) or CCHP (Combined Cooling Heat & Power) with cycle efficiencies as high as 91%; three times better (and therefore 3 times cheaper) than OPG.
What are you waiting for?
Agricultural waste added to municipal waste creates increased methane production for internal combustion engines to produce electricity and heat, avoiding garbage producing landfill methane that is 37 times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
The by-product from digestion of municipal and agricultural waste is top soil and squeaky clean recyclables. With humus levels in most North American farm soils as low as 3.5% (instead of what they should be, 28%), extra topsoil can be beneficial to farmers and others, instead of using chemical fertilizers.
Glenn Black
Small Flock Poultry Farmers of Canada
Living in the heart of "greenhouse country" I see they use coal,recycled wood (pallets,ect. ground up),NG,Bunker oil and there is quite a few hundred acres of Miscunith grasses grown but a lot of it which is harvested in the spring has been sitting in fields rotting for a few years. NG Turbinelooks like best alternative as even in summer they had some heat at night to keep disease down. Locally there is also a bio-digested providing electric power from greehouse waste,dog food,ect. Like all energy sources there is a downside too bio digesters as liquid left over is a good fertilizer but many transport loads are produced a day and it smells worse than any livestock manure. Presently most of it is dumped in hog barn pits or lagoons . The big greenhouse operations have sister farms in US,Mexico and some in Spain,just good business sense. I am told Ontario is not the most economical place too site greenhouses now . When you have 3,000 temporary foreign workers in town and around 3,000 acres of greenhouse vegetable production it changes things a lot . Most all are on municipal water and draw at night too fill reservoirs as system can't provide enough pressure/draw in the day.Kind of ironic too see the black coal smoke coming out of greenhouse boilers and 80+ wind turbines in the background. kg kimball
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