I find it surprising that just a week after the Ontario government flip-flopped on offshore wind the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) has the nerve to put out a flattering press release praising the government for a commitment to wind energy that “strengthens investor confidence.” Somebody is brown-nosing here.

Apparently the government issued a directive to the Ontario Power Authority regarding its long-term energy plan, which Robert Hornung, president of CanWEA, decided worthy of praise in a gushing press release. “Reaffirming the government’s target for new wind energy supply and proceeding quickly with new contracts for wind energy projects and necessary transmission system upgrades will strengthen investor confidence that Ontario is a good place to do business.”

Pull-eassse! Investor confidence took a serious blow last week with the decision on offshore wind, because it sent a signal to investors that the Ontario government can change its mind on a dime. CanWEA is showing its true stripes in this press release — that is, it doesn’t care about developing offshore wind in Ontario — because its members, who are mostly onshore developers, want to keep all the opportunities to themselves. This press release is clearly an attempt to kiss up to the government in the wake of the offshore controversy, which CanWEA should be speaking out again, not sweeping under the rug. 

Now that offshore wind has been voted off the island, the onshore guys are in survivor mode.

News was mixed today, depending on which way the wind blew. In the United States, the American Wind Energy Association announced the “exciting” news that a record 8,358 megawatts of wind capacity had been installed across the United States in 2008. Assuming an average capacity factor of 33 per cent, that’s roughly 2,800 megawatts of reliable power generation built in a single year. And how many nukes have been built? Zilch. When will the first new nuke plant in North America likely become operational? Oh, say, 2018? A lot of wind can be deployed in those intervening nine years. But I digress. AWEA said the wind industry in 2008 channelled $17 billion in new investments into the U.S. economy, and represented 42 per cent of newly installed power-generation capacity — most of the rest coming from natural gas. In all, the wind industry spurred the creation of 35,000 jobs last year. (more…)