Ontario outshines Sunshine State, surging to #3 in North American solar market

2009 was a breakthrough year for solar power in Ontario. A report by the U.S. Interstate Renewable Energy Council showed remarkable growth in Ontario’s solar market in 2009, pushing Ontario to number three on the list of states/provinces for installed solar power, installing 46 MW of solar panels last year. Only California and New Jersey installed more solar power, 212 and 5 MWs respectively. Ontario even performed better than the so called “Sunshine State,” which installed only 35 MW.

2010 is poised to be an even bigger year for solar power in Ontario. According to the Canadian Solar Industries Association, Ontario will install as much as 200 MW in 2010 (100MW have already been installed), pushing it closer to the top in North America. As a result, several new solar panel manufacturing plants have opened up shop in Ontario.

This massive investment in solar is driven largely by the Green Energy and Green Economy Act and Ontario’s new renewable energy Feed-in Tariff, guaranteeing the price paid to companies and homeowners who generate renewable power.

Thanks to Paul Gipe (www.wind-works.org) for the tip.

BPA: Soon to Be “Toxic”, Currently in Our Bodies

We have some good news to report regarding the designation of bisphenol A (BPA) as “toxic” under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The federal government is moving forward on its commitment to designate it as such, having stated that this will occur within the next 8-10 weeks. As mentioned in an earlier blog post, the reason for the 2-year "toxic" designation delay is because a formal notice of objection was filed.

Information reveals that the objection, which asked the federal government to reconsider the “toxic” designation, was filed on July 15, 2009 by the American Chemistry Council. However, now that the government has considered the notice and dismissed it given that no new data was brought forth, we’re going to see BPA’s addition to Canada’s Toxic Substances List relatively soon. For more information, check out this Postmedia article by Sarah Schmidt.

This is particularly good news given that the day before the above story was published, results from the federal government’s Canada-wide biomonitoring project (the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS)) showed that 91% of Canadians aged 6 to 79 had detectable concentrations of BPA in their urine. This is the first time BPA was measured at a national level. Given associated evidence that regulating substances and removing them from our products and environment works - lead concentrations in Canadians’ blood have gone from about 27% to less than 1% at or above the intervention level over 30 years – the move towards designating BPA as “toxic” and opening up the possibility for further action on the substance is most welcome. For more on the CHMS results, check out the full report by Heatlh Canada.

catch up Ontario!

For a province with so much riding on the future of the automotive industry, you can't shake the feeling that Ontario is starting to fall badly behind in the electric vehicle revolution now unfolding - elsewhere.

Latest is the news that China is pulling together its industrial actors and investing $15 billion to become a leader in electric and hybrid vehicles. One commentator said this of the move:

“The car industry was long ago designated as a pillar industry for China. And the second thing is green technology or high tech; this is where the action is going to be, and China wants to be there.”

One can imagine substituting "Ontario" for "China" in that first sentence, but what about the second?

And, it's not just China that sees the opportunity. Last month, U.S. President Obama was in neighbouring Michigan to break ground on a new battery factory to serve the electric vehicle industry. His administration has allocated $5 billion to electric vehicles, and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm estimates that 62,000 jobs associated with the industry will be generated in that one state over the next decade.

So, where is Ontario? The McGuinty government seems to "get it" on one level that this is the future, but has so far confined itself to consumer rebates on electric vehicles, and committing to buy electric vehicles for government fleets.

This is all to the good, but amounts to small baby steps while our competitors take giant strides. We are getting left behind.

Fundamentally, this is a matter of infrastructure and industrial policy. Electric vehicle take up by Ontario drivers will only happen in a meaningful way when the infrastructure is in place to support them. And, this involves action on multiple fronts, including standard setting, grid upgrades, and charging stations.

Industrial policy involves working with existing and new companies and workers on creating the conditions where electric vehicle components are developed and manufactured in Ontario rather than elsewhere, and ensuring that these vehicles are powered by clean, renewable energy produced here at home to create even more jobs.

The necessary comprehensive policy for Ontario to catch up and to become a leader in electric vehicles cuts across several Ministries and therefore needs some kind of cross-government Task Force to pull the right decision makers together to make it happen. Such a Task Force should be coupled with an advisory body that brings in experts from municipalities, industry, labour, and environmental organizations.

Oil is a finite resource, and as the Gulf spill and ongoing tar sands destruction have shown, comes at an increasing cost to our life support systems. Ontario needs to catch up to other jurisdictions in pursuing electric vehicles as one core part of getting off oil, and needs to significantly up its game on this front, starting today.

Matt Price
Policy Director

thanks, Scarp

UPDATE: The report talked about below can now be found online here.

*******

Thanks to MP Francis Scarpaleggia who both spearheaded the push to have the federal House of Commons Environment Committee investigate the issue of tar sands and water issues, and who today released his party's findings based on that investigation.

Unfortunately, the Committee itself could not come to consensus on putting out a report. The members cannot talk about why this is so, since the decision was taken in camera and the rules say they aren't allowed to talk about it. But, to get an indication of what happened, voters would be well advised to check out this story about a guide book on sabotaging Committee work that the Conservatives have deployed.

Mr. Scarpaleggia's recommendations are worth implementing, although unfortunately at this point his report has not been posted online, so we can't cite them in full. They include: conducting a cancer study in Fort Chip, including naphthenic acids in disclosure of pollutants, reviewing the discredited industry-dominated water monitoring program in the tar sands, and having the federal government assert its authority under the Fisheries Act to, in essence, do its job.

Overall, this is a sign that at least some MPs in Ottawa want to take their responsibility regarding tar sands regulation seriously. Indeed, with other party reports expected, this could very well be a majority of MPs - but unfortunately not those of the stripe that currently control the levers of power.

Matt Price
Policy Director

Sun rises again for Ontario’s solar industry

Good news: Ontario Government hears public concerns on solar price change

A bit of background in case you're not in the renewable energy loop: On July 2nd, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) posted a change to the microFIT program, the guaranteed price paid to renewable energy generators in Ontario. Much to the chagrin of farmers and solar power investors, the new price for small scale ground-mounted solar projects was 26% lower than previously listed. Like I said in my earlier post, clouds were looming over Ontario solar power, and key stakeholders were not having it.

Leading the charge was the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), the Canadian Solar Industries Association (CanSIA), Ontario Sustainable Energy Associationand the Green Energy Act Alliance. After several heated webinar battles, carefully crafted submissions and business models comparing installation costs, capacity factors, and debt/equity ratios, inundating the Ontario Power Authority, it was feared that the Ontario solar industry would be taking a big hit.

Today, following the 30-day consultation period, the government has decided to keep the original price for applications in the queue, but set up a new category for small solar power projects installed on the ground.

That sound you hear is a shared sigh of relief from the thousands of people currently waiting to hear back about their contracts or who want to build solar power, and the tens of thousands of people who will be employed in renewable energy industries. Congratulations and thanks for listening Minister Duguid and the OPA.

Wind fills sails of Ontario workers

Earlier today, Siemens announced it will be opening Ontario’s first wind turbine blade manufacturing facility. The deal with Samsung C&T and Pattern Energy includes 600MW of Siemens turbines for Ontario’s renewable energy market.

Siemens management credit Ontario’s new Feed-in tariff (FIT) with the decision to open the new plant. The FIT guarantees the price paid for different types of renewable power, including wind power.

This announcement is part of the $7 Billion dollar deal with a consortium of Korean companies, including Samsung C&T, that was finalized in January 2010 to anchor Ontario’s renewable energy manufacturing sector and create 1,400 manufacturing jobs while opening at least four manufacturing facilities for wind and solar power.

While it is not yet clear where the facility will be located, all eyes will be focused on Burlington and Hamilton where Siemens owns or has owned plants.

Shhh! This isn't news...

As Naomi Campbell's diamond flap fills news headlines, what's not news, apparently, is that pesky story that our life support systems are breaking down, just like global warming models predict.

From forest fires and landslides in BC, to forest fires and floods in Russia, to devastating floods around Asia, to a giant iceberg breaking off the Greenland ice sheet, very few journalists care to make the linkage between the trend towards more of these events, and our failure to enact policies to reduce global warming pollution.

Environment Canada, meanwhile, has a couple of interesting maps showing both how the Canadian national average spring temperature this year was 4.1 degrees above average (below), and also a disturbing time trend map showing temperature rise across the country over time.

Our policy makers must awake from their dangerous slumber on this file and instead put in place aggressive policies to transition us to a clean energy economy, as Portugal is doing, for example. But, first we'll have to convince them that the survival of our civilization is somehow more important than the long form census.

Matt Price
Policy Director

You don't need to be dirty to be rich

Today Premier Ed Stelmach is touting the economic benefits of the tar sands for the rest of Canada at the annual gathering of Premiers in Winnipeg. Apparently, we need to accept the growing pollution problem if we want to prosper.

But the data from the past two decades doesn't support that. Alberta was responsible for more than half of the increase in global warming pollution, and for 18% of Canada's GDP growth. Quebec was also responsible for 18% of our GDP growth, and actually reduced its emissions, while Ontario contributed 40% to GDP and 10% to emissions growth.

We don't need to accept rising global warming pollution as the cost of economic health, particularly with clean energy poised to become one of the largest industrial sectors in the world over the next decade.

What's more, the rapid rise in tar sands exports is actually having a negative impact on jobs in some parts of the country. Manufacturing is suffering in Ontario and Quebec partly due to the rising Canadian dollar. As oil exports have risen, our currency has become increasingly linked to the price of oil. The Petro-Loonie is set to soar if tar sands expansion proceeds as planned, and oil prices continue to rise.



Provinces like Ontario have recognized that the future energy economy will be green, and that jobs can be created by leading in transition from oil to clean energy. As a country, that's the type of economic engine we need, rather than hitching our wagon to dirty energy.

Gillian McEachern
Program Manager, Climate and Energy