Ontario to embrace European-style feed-in tariffs for small clean power projects
In a news story of mine today in the Toronto Star, based on an interview I had last week with Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan, it appears the province is going to create a feed-in tariff that will let people who install solar, wind, biomass or micro-hydro systems sell clean power to the province at a premium. Called a renewable energy feed-in tariff — also known as a Standard Offer Contract – this would be one of the most progressive renewable energy policies in North America, similar in effect to policies in Germany and other parts of Europe that have given a tremendous boost to renewable energy production and industries. It essentially gives small clean power producers an easy way to participate in a market that has been biased towards large wind farms and other major RE projects hand-chosen by the province.
Check out the story for more details. This is great news for Ontario, and will hopefully blaze a trail that other provinces and U.S. states will follow.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca