Is Ontario quietly walking away from its renewable energy targets?

Ontario is driving the country's most ambitious renewable energy incentive program; its Feed-In Tariff that came as part of the landmark Green Energy Act. As with any ambitious government policy, equally ambitious targets accompany the program itself.

Several months ago I came across Ontario's new renewable energy targets under its FIT program and found them to be well beyond anything I had seen before. Ontario had committed to 15,000 MW of new renewable energy by 2025 and even hoped to exceed the targets. To put that in context, its current generating capacity is roughly 35,000 MW, primarily made up of nuclear, gas, coal and hydro.

Because solar projects are not usually very large and relatively few biogas projects are developed, most of the 15,000 MW would come from wind and hydro projects. Now, to be clear, 15,000 MW of hydro projects would produce a lot more electricity than 15,000 MW of wind projects because the wind doesn't blow all the time. But if even a third of that target is met by wind, it would mean a minimum of 2,500 new wind turbines scattered throughout the province. Regardless of whether or not you think that's a good thing, that is an immense number of turbines. It's actually more than you'd find all over Canada, Ontario currently included.

But I came across something very curious the other day. While looking to confirm those targets for my Honours Thesis, they were nowhere to be found. The government website I had used before was no longer available and a thorough review of the government's different department/agency websites (the Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Natural Resources, Ontario Power Authority) brought up nothing.

Instead, the only solid numbers I could find were estimates of job creation and what Ontario has already done since October. In thinking I was perhaps going a little crazy, I went in search of these targets elsewhere. Luckily, I was able to find a few sites (here, here and here) that made reference to the government announcement of the targets.

Why these targets aren't available is quite a mystery. It is, of course, possible that I am simply too daft to find them, but I find it unlikely. At this point I won't begin to speculate further, but I feel that it might be appropriate to follow up on it.

I'll try to keep people updated...