As if Ontario's provincial government had just watched the documentary, its Green Energy and Economy Act was passed this past summer as North America's first uber-progressive energy-related legislation, essentially mirroring the innovative policies adopted in countries like Germany and Denmark. The act will certainly spur the rapid development of renewables in Ontario through the Feed-in-Tariff program, but it also emphasizes a lesser-known approach to renewable energy development known as community power.
Community power is the ownership, development and management of renewable energy projects by the local community. Rather than having big companies come in and rent out the land to put up, say, ten wind turbines, the landowners instead opt to do the project themselves. These types of projects have significant local economic benefits (local jobs and the revenue stays in the local economy), environmental benefits (after all, they are renewable energy projects) and very importantly, create a greater understanding of the technologies, which aids in the social acceptance and uptake of renewable projects.
You will often find community power projects developed in the form of community co-operatives, First Nations groups, municipalities and local utilities, farmers and most commonly a combination of these groups. Unfortunately, by the end of 2008, less than 1% of Ontario's renewables were community-owned. The Green Energy Act hopes to change that raise the share to levels found in (surprise, surprise) Denmark and Germany, which have community ownership rates of ~90% and ~50%, respectively.
As a means to get the ball rolling on community projects, the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association (OSEA) recently held the 1st Annual Community Power Conference in Toronto. Despite the steep $1000 conference fee (I'll discuss this later) I was able to attend for free thanks to a generous donation from David Suzuki (pictured below).
The conference brought together a broad range of delegates: folks from the renewables industry, government officials, consultants, representatives of different lobby groups, First Nations members and some small start-up companies. Of course, some Europeans came across the pond to give us an idea of how successfully this model had worked in Europe. The talks were very informative (several future blog posts will relate to the conference) and the networking opportunities were quite substantial. And of course, getting to sit beside David Suzuki for a $200 banquet dinner (covered, thank goodness) wasn't too shabby either.
But there were some big things missing from the conference. You might have justifiably gasped at the size of the conference fee. How many community groups can afford to dish out $1000 to attend a conference for two days? Not many, apparently. There was only a handful of individuals from community groups considering putting together a community project. This bothered me. But much emphasis at the conference was put on partnerships between developers and community groups, so we may very well see a series of community partnerships pushed forward by big developers. It looks good on their part (usually actually is good if done properly) and actually makes projects more profitable (the Feed-in-Tariff includes bonuses for community or First Nations involvement).
I've attended a few of these conferences the past summer and have come to realize that excessive hobnobbing is quite commonplace. Fortunately, the level of 'community' participation in this conference does not reflect the true potential for community projects in Ontario. What the conference indicated very clearly is that the potential benefits of these projects are immense in Ontario and more importantly, there is a wealth of excitement building up in the province to put renewables all over. It is a very exciting time for Ontario.
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