Web seminar tackles green energy grid connections

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

by SUSAN MANN

More than 150 people from across the province have registered so far for the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association’s Friday webinar on Feed-in Tariff and Micro Feed-in Tariff grid connection matters.

Nicole Risse, association events and outreach manager, says that’s way higher than the normal registration of 60 to 80 people for the association’s webinars. The other sponsor of the webinar is the Electrical Contractors Association of Ontario.

The webinar runs from 10 a.m. to noon. A Hydro One representative will be on hand to talk about connection work, fees, who can do what, progress on grid upgrades and policies regarding capacity.

The Hydro representative will be available to answer technical and procedural questions online but will only respond to questions about specific projects offline, she says.

Risse says there are a lot of rumours and misinformation and for the renewable energy sector to grow “we need to understand what challenges we are facing.”

Two lawyers from the firm Gowling, Lafleur and Henderson, Ian Mondrow and Tom Timmins, will also participate. Mondrow will talk about a case where he represented the Electrical Contractors Association of Ontario at an Ontario Energy Board hearing and obtained clarification on regulations involving third-party contractors, Risse says. The clarification was on what part of the connection process has to be done by Hydro One and where third-party contractors can be used.

Risse says Timmins will talk about MicroFIT grid matters. 

The association is made up of community groups doing projects under the FIT program, companies, municipalities, environmental organizations, and educational institutions that do research on renewable energy in Ontario.

Registration is available at: http://oseawebinars.eventbrite.com/  BF