Monday, July 11, 2011

Speculation over Ontario's Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) program is now causing job loss

  • The FIT program was started by the Liberal Ontario government a few years ago, to ween Ontario off coal-fired electricity and enhance the renewable energy sector in Ontario. It covers ALL renewable power (not just solar photovoltaic cells), and pays industries/homes that feed renewable-electricity into the grid over 10 times the standard per-unit cost of electricity.
  • Now, with Ontario elections coming up in October, the Conservatives (who are leading in the polls) are threatening to gut the FIT program... this threat is causing solar companies to fire over half of their workers, such as the one described in this CBC news article!
  • The Conservatives do have a point - Solar may not be as well suited in Ontario as in the Arizona desert, and so may not be as economical in Ontario. Currently, Solar power is expensive and the industry wouldn't survive if not for expensive government subsidies.
  • But the FIT doesn't just apply to solar, it also applies to wind, geothermal, even tidal energy. And I think weening Ontario off coal-fired electricity is a noble goal, and would show other provinces that it can be done. Solar power can be made cheaper with larger scales of production. Not taking advantage of clean energy when it's there would just be a shameful waste.
  • What do you think?
FUN FACT: Just last year, our Queen's University took advantage of the FIT offer and made plans to lease out the majority the university's roof space for solar panel installation, which would earn Queen's hundreds of thousands of dollars per year over 20 years (the length of the FIT contract).
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1 comment:

  1. a dragonSeptember 4, 2011 at 11:08 AM

    One of the biggest problems is we tend to treat solar and wind power as equivalent to coal generation. The biggest difference is that coal is dispatchable (can be turned on and off when needed) and that it can be relied upon to provide baseload power (a continuous amount of electricity to the grid). Wind and solar are intermittent. Thus, as we see more wind and solar installations go up, new natural gas plants pop up as well to fill in the gaps when the wind is still and the sun is not shining bright.

    With our abundant organic waste and biomass supplies, I see biogas and biomass as the renewable energy sources of the future, a solution that could be a bit more made in Canada than following the trend of building wind and solar plants.

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