Ontario Takes Historic Step Towards Energy Future

Says Ontario Sustainable Energy Association

March 21, 2006

For more information contact:

Melinda Zytaruk or Deborah Doncaster at OSEA, 416 977 4441.

(Toronto, Ontario) Today's announcement of a new policy on small power projects by Premier Dalton McGuinty and Ontario Minister of Energy Donna Cansfield is an historic step towards a sustainable future says a Toronto group.

"This is a bold step that puts Ontario at the forefront of renewable energy development in North America," says Melinda Zytaruk, general manager of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association. "No other jurisdiction in North America has crafted such a striking plan to reduce its contribution to climate change by closing its coal-fired power plants and launching an ambitious program to rapidly develop renewable energy."

Premier McGuinty and Minister Cansfield jointly announced that Ontario would offer standard contracts to anyone in the province who wanted to generate electricity with renewable energy. The contracts would allow homeowners, farmers, first nations, and cooperatives to connect their wind turbines and solar panels to the provincial electricity system.

Those who participate in the program will be paid for their electricity. The contracts will also pay for electricity from small hydro plants and on-farm biomass plants.

"These Standard Offer Contracts are widely used in Europe," says OSEA's Zytaruk, "where they have been extremely successful.

Previous renewable energy programs in Ontario have prevented homeowners and farmers from participating. The new policy is specifically targeted at encouraging a broad spectrum of small, independent generators, especially cooperatives, in investing in Ontario's energy future.

OSEA, a small non-governmental organization, has been instrumental in putting the Standard Offer concept on the political agenda in Ontario. They launched a campaign in early 2004 to adapt the European policy to Ontario so OSEA's members could form cooperatives to install wind turbines. In Denmark and Germany farmers and cooperatives have been the driving force behind renewable energy. According to OSEA, hundreds of thousands of Germans and Danes own and operate their own wind turbines, biomass plants, and solar systems.

They found a receptive listener in Cansfield (MPP, Etobicoke Centre). Cansfield, formerly parliamentary assistant to then Minister of Energy Dwight Duncan, was named Minister of Energy by Premier McGuinty in a cabinet reshuffle.

Cansfield was instrumental in pushing the Liberal Party to endorse what OSEA calls Advanced Renewable Tariffs at a party congress in November, 2004.

Ministry of Energy staff prefer the more prosaic term Standard Offer Contracts to OSEA's Advanced Renewable Tariffs.

Premier McGuinty said last year that the policy then being considered could result in thousands of megawatts being added to Ontario's electricity supply.

"Throughout the development of this program, Minister Cansfield has insisted that this policy lead to action, that it result in real benefits to Ontario, and that it stimulate a dynamic market for renewable energy technology in the province. She has delivered," says OSEA's Zytaruk.

"This is no hollow press release, announced with much fanfare and followed by nothing of substance. This is a real program with a mechanism that has worked elsewhere. Everyone in our organization is anxious to get started."

back to Archive of Articles