by SUSAN MANN
The Ontario government plans to introduce a new type of procurement for wind energy next year, says Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli.
The new procurement will start in the first quarter of 2014 and be based on a request or proposal system. The procurement for wind will be more targeted and controlled than it was under the Feed in Tariff (FIT) program. “We’ve taken wind out of the FIT program,” he told southwestern Ontario reporters during a telephone press conference Wednesday afternoon held to discuss the government’s recently released long term energy plan.
To win a contract, successful companies will need to have a “significant engagement with the municipality where it’s going to be sited,” he says. Municipalities won’t have an absolute veto on wind energy projects going into their area, but it will be very difficult for a “proponent to win a contact.”
Chiarelli says municipalities aren’t given an absolute veto because there are times when generation capacity or transmission lines must be planned regionally whether the energy is renewable or not. If two or three connected municipalities had a veto over energy infrastructure, “you wouldn’t be able to move a transmission line across a county or even across two counties. There has to be some fail safe way for us to say, ‘Everybody’s got to do their share.’”
In the current energy mix used and distributed in Ontario, renewable energy including wind represents less than four per cent, Chiarelli says.
Another initiative in the government’s long-term energy plan is financial help for municipalities to generate energy plans. Municipalities must realize that if they’re going to expand subdivisions and build new commercial/industrial property, that will need more electricity and they can’t simply say they’ll let the generation happen in someone else’s backyard, he explains. “There has to be a certain merging of energy planning between the municipal sector and the provincial sector. This new long term plan creates that marriage of planning,” he says. BF
Comments
Guess the Ontario energy got everything in hand , throw money at everything and let the taxpayers pay. Why don,t they let the solar go on rooftops of the houses or whatever buildings and keep them out of the country side , and put the windmills in the industrial parks where people don,t live and they wouldn,t hear them inside the buildings where they work. Oh I forgot there wouldn,t be any industrial park when they get done raising the price we pay for our electricity , maybe we can shove a windmill where the sun doesn,t shine at the government,s palace . Just a suggestion .
What they are really saying is everybody in "rural Ontario" got to do their share.
Almost sounds like a veiled threat,rural communities except the Turbines or face energy cuts/raises.
We all know who the big culprits are when it comes to expanded subdivisions and Industrial land expansion, the Cities! when do they do their part? They have been saying in someone else's backyard for a long time.
More weasel words to say the same thing is going to happen in the future, that has always happened. We need a new government.
They are just "spinning" it differently. In the meantime, they continue with the onslaught and have set a new low. Several days ago a proposal for 3 MW wind turbines (77 of them for West Lincoln, Wainleet and Haldimand) was deemed complete and posted to the Environmental Registry. The MoE confirmed in writing that this size has never been installed at the ridiculous Ontario standard of 550m before - anywhere in the world.
What MOE doesn't want the public to know is that scientific research in Denmark has proven that low frequency noise as in the part that can be measured on the dbC - G scales and with seismic vibration sensors increases substantially with increased blade length. Low Frequency Noise has been proven to permeate walls, reconstitute itself and actually be worse inside a house than outside. Furthermore, they and wind companies are currently not required to measure that problem! It's all about the money and not about the latest research showing a safety problem!!!!
I think rural Ontario has been doing it's fair share to service Toronto long enough. When is this Liberal gov't going to understand that renewables like wind & solar are just not cutting it as technically, economically or environmentally feasible forms of generation. The AG indicated quite clearly they did not do a proper cost benefit analysis to determine whether taxpayer $$ were well spent in support of renewable energy. As for this continual mantra about cleaning up our air, I call BS, Ontario instituted air pollution controls in the 60's and the largest portions of pollution are now the result of transportation.
A recent article: http://freewco.blogspot.ca/2013/12/energy-planning-in-ontario-who-do-we....
states very clearly that the engineers association of Ontario have told the politicians that wind power doesn't blow it sucks. It costs us far more than the 13.5 cents per kilowatt hr. if you consider the grid upgrades, backup gas plants, export power at a loss etc. etc.
As for the so called CO2 savings, they conveniently forget to include the gas backup CO2. According to the engineers association, the maximum limit for wind on the grid should be 1400MW, yet is currently at 2200 MW with another 3600 to be added in the next couple of years. We are currently shutting down turbines because of surplus power especially at night, so why are we building more?... so that we can shut them down also? AS the auditor general stated, "Where is the economic business model for wind power"? Why aren't the politicians allowing input from the engineers association? See: http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.ospe.on.ca/resource/resmgr/doc_advocacy/201...
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