Quebec-Ontario electricity trade is smart, but not simple - The Globe and Mail

Quebec-Ontario electricity trade is smart, but not simple - The Globe and Mail:

Last week, Quebec’s and Ontario’s premiers announced their desire to work together on crucial issues, including climate change, interprovincial trade and infrastructure. It is very positive for Canada when our two largest provinces recognize the benefits of co-operation. We should certainly hope they succeed, but let’s also be mindful of the obstacles in their way

Especially interesting is the prospect of greater interprovincial trade in electricity. This would be a game-changer in Canada, and a very positive one. Quebec has a great deal of low-cost hydroelectricity available to export, and its current U.S. markets are becoming less interested in purchasing long-distance hydro power because of their own development of low-price shale gas. At the same time, Ontario’s economy continues to grow but has few options for increasing its electricity capacity at costs anywhere close to Quebec’s. So the idea of Ontario buying electricity from Quebec is obviously sensible.

Any idea that is so obviously sensible must have serious problems, and there are at least three that come to mind.

The first will be the pressures from within Ontario to resist importing cheaper Quebec electricity. It will be argued that Ontario has built a world-class nuclear industry and that refurbishing existing nuclear plants and building new ones is necessary to keep this expertise at home. The fact that approximately nobody in the rest of the world wants to purchase this expertise or the associated technology will be ignored, or perhaps held up as an example of how government needs to do more to sell these products. Other “anti-importers” in Ontario will argue along the lines of securing jobs and economic development – that building electricity capacity (of any kind) within Ontario keeps the projects and associated construction jobs at home.

Though they may be dressed up and spun differently, these arguments are nothing more than simple protectionism. Hopefully Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne will see this and focus on the bigger picture: In a world where Ontario needs electricity and Quebec has it in spades, it can only be good for Ontario to purchase it.

This brings us to the second obstacle, and it will come from la belle province. Quebeckers have no problem with selling their surplus electricity to Vermont and New York at prices that exceed the internal Quebec ones. Except in a few small industries, Quebec firms do not see themselves as competing with American ones.

But many won't want to make the same offer to Ontario, as they will see it as giving an advantage to competing firms. Indeed, Ontario will argue that having access to Quebec’s cheaper power will improve the competitiveness of its firms; so it’s only to be expected that Quebeckers will view the same transaction as causing their own competitive decline.

Again, these arguments are nothing more than raw protectionism, and hopefully Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard will resist them strongly. Quebec as a whole will benefit by selling its surplus power to any jurisdiction prepared to pay the price; it will also benefit if the consequent greater development in Ontario leads to more trade in other products between the two provinces, which is very likely.

The third obstacle is the toughest. Suppose Ontario and Quebec enter into a long-term partnership in which Ontario’s electricity needs are increasingly satisfied by Quebec’s production. This would be great for both provinces. But increasing Quebec’s electricity capacity means the construction of more hydro generating stations, and this will require more development in Quebec’s northern regions. This will certainly require the close involvement of First Nations communities.

First Nations communities will demand genuine consultation at every step of the project, and that close attention be paid to the project’s impact on the environment and on traditional hunting and fishing grounds. They will also demand a share of the income generated. The Quebec government will need to recognize the legitimacy of these demands and partner with the First Nations in a genuine and transparent manner. All of this is possible, but it is not simple.

To any objective observer from far away, greater electricity trade between Ontario and Quebec would appear to be a no-brainer. And it is. But there are real obstacles. We should all celebrate the fact that Premiers Wynne and Couillard are starting this much-needed conversation, and we should wish them all the luck in the world. They will need it.

Kelly McParland: Ontario quietly reverses field on wind, solar energy | Full Comment | National Post

Kelly McParland: Ontario quietly reverses field on wind, solar energy | Full Comment | National Post

Times of international turmoil are great moments for domestic governments to make important announcements they don’t want to be noticed. Especially if the announcement involves a sudden reversal in policy that could seriously embarrass the government.

So Friday afternoon was an ideal time for Ontario’s Liberal government to take a big chunk of its alternative energy program and chuck it overboard. Attention was riveted on Egypt, where spectacular events were unfolding.  The perfect opportunity for Premier Dalton McGuinty to engineer yet another major reversal, while paying a minimal price among voters.

After years of touting wind projects as a critical piece of the alternative energy puzzle, the government let slip — very quietly — that offshore wind projects are no longer part of the game plan. Turns out there just isn’t enough scientific evidence that offshore wind projects do a lick of good, said Brad Duguid, the energy minister.

“It’s simply a case of recognizing we need to take a closer look at the science on freshwater offshore wind projects,” said Duguid. “Right now there’s only one in the world we’re aware of, in Sweden. There’s a number of issues that need to be looked at before anything could ever be considered for approval.”

Gee, now wouldn’t you think the government would have checked out the sciencebefore insisting wind power was the way of the future? Evidently not. The McGuinty people have been pushing ahead vigorously on the wind front ever since they concluded they could squeeze more votes from trendy enviro-enthusiasts, who are in favour of anything that sounds remotely Greenish, whether it makes sense or not.

They’ve been running into a spot of bother, though, as rural residents grow increasingly agitated at the monster wind towers being slapped up wherever the government sees fit to put them. Turns out the government may have been a bit rash in dismissing complaints that the low-level noise from the turbines can cause health problems. A court challenge launched late in January claims that the 550-metre minimum setback is far too close for comfort, and argues the government didn’t do adequate homework into the potential health hazards when it declared the towers to be free of any danger.

Added to McGuinty’s problems with wind are similar signs of trouble on the solar front. After strongly encouraging individual solar projects, and offering outrageously generous pricing on solar-generated power, the province unexpectedly announced last summer it was slashing the rate it would pay  on some projects.  On Friday, hundreds more Ontarians were told that installations they’d erected at the behest of the government can’t be connected to the provincial grid because of technical problems. Rural residents, some of whom have invested large amounts in solar generating operations, will be left high and dry. The Toronto Star reports:

“I’ve got $70,000 sitting right out in my backyard,” said Brian Wilson, who lives near Belleville, of his 10-kilowatt solar array. “I can go two doors down and they’ve got $70,000 invested, too.”

But they’ve both been told that they can’t connect to the electrical grid because of technical issues.

“It’s a mess,” says Kim Doherty of Farmed Energy Inc., who supplies solar equipment. He started getting calls from clients this week, saying they’d been told no connections are available for their projects.

One of his clients, a father-and-son team near Strathroy, made a $170,000 down payment on solar equipment, and built four concrete support platforms at a cost of $20,000 each, Doherty said

Angering rural voters, and battering your credibility with the environmental crowd,  aren’t great ideas if you run a government that faces an election in eight months. So it’s no wonder that Ontario’s Liberals sought to hide the bad news by releasing it when (they hoped) no one was watching. But the excitement in Egypt won’t last forever, and eventually people will notice that Ontario’s government, once again, has been forced into a humiliating retreat at considerable trouble and cost to individual Ontarians.

U.S. wind power drops off despite falling prices

What I find most interesting about this article is 1) how low some of the rates are in the US for wind power - 5-6 cents/kwh 2) that China has 41,800MW of installed wind capacity.

The American Wind Energy Association reported a substantial fall in U.S. wind power installations in 2010, saying some project developers held off from investing because of uncertain federal policies.

The trade association said that 5,115 megawatts of wind power capacity were put online last year, compared to 10,000 megawatts of capacity in 2009. The 2010 number also falls below annual installations for 2008 and 2007, according to AWEA data. (Click for PDF of report.)

At the same time, AWEA reported that the price for electricity from wind has fallen. Recent power purchase agreements to buy energy from wind farms have been in the range of 5 cents to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour, AWEA director of industry data and analysis Elizabeth Salerno said in a statement. That price, which includes the tax credit project developers receive, puts it below the price of electricity generated by natural gas in some parts of the country, according to AWEA.

Energy project developers receive a 30 percent tax credit for investing in wind farms, but the existing credit was set to expire at the end of 2010. The uncertainty over whether that investment tax credit would be renewed caused "a dampening effect on investment all the way around," said Peter Kelley, the vice president of public affairs at AWEA.

The lame duck Congress in mid-December passed an extension to the tax credit until the end of 2011. With that in place, AWEA says that utilities are locking in today's rates to purchase wind power, with 5,600 megawatts now under construction.

With the direction on national wind policy unclear, state-level policies, such as utility mandates for renewable energy, are becoming more important. Texas is by far the biggest wind power state, with 10,085 megawatts of capacity installed compared to 3,675 megawatts for Iowa and 3,177 megawatts in California.

The total U.S. wind capacity is now 40,180 megawatts, which is 15 percent higher than the start of 2010. Last year, China surpassed the U.S. for the most installed capacity which grew an estimated 62 percent last year to 41,800 megawatts.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20029343-54.html#ixzz1C1M3ZPCI

U.S. wind power drops off despite falling prices | Green Tech - CNET News

Too much power? Solution for too much wind energy

There is no question that we often need to give away and export of electricity when demand is low and production is up.  Why not find ways to utilize all of our excess electricity when demand is low?  Doing this through heat storage curtails our fossil fuel consumption, and provides us with lower cost heating options.  Great concept.  Would love to see more test programs developed with the Ontario smart metering roll-out.

January 20, 2011

Possible solution to storing wind power

Column | Korky Koroluk

A simple, low-tech solution to the problem of storing wind power is undergoing testing in three small North American markets — one in Summerside, P.E.I., and two in Maine.

In the process, it is showing how alternative energy is able to offer new jobs for HVAC engineers and contractors.

The solution involves not centralized storage in one large plant, but “distributed” storage involving small ceramic heaters in peoples’ basements. It’s also being installed in a few small commercial buildings.

Critics have often criticized wind or solar energy installations because the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. Intermittent sunshine has been overcome by building concentrating solar plants which, on sunny days, store energy as molten salts that are later used to produce steam turbines. It’s a system that is now being used in several places in the world, most notably Spain and the American Southwest.

Now researchers have come up with ceramic heaters, which are nothing more than extremely dense ceramic blocks in insulated cabinets. The blocks store energy as heat when the wind is blowing, then release it slowly over the next day or two.

The American experiments have been under construction for several months; the Summerside project is just beginning.

Prince Edward Island produces a lot of wind power. The problem is that the wind tends to blow more at night when energy demand is low. Because of this, the province has been selling some of that surplus energy to mainland markets, but at low rates.

But at a recent meeting of Summerside city council, homeowners were asked to buy the ceramic storage systems.

The heaters are expensive, though, at about $2,000 each. They are expected to save money over the long term, but that is often not sufficient to get people to act. That’s why the city is offering users a break on their electricity prices that could amount to about $600 a year. City fathers hope that will lead to at least 100 sales this year.

In Maine, getting people to convert to distributed wind energy is more urgent because oil is used to heat 80 per cent of all homes in the state. That’s why the incentive for switching off oil is somewhat sweeter.

For a start, the Highland Wind project developer, Independence Wind, is offering any participating household a $6,000 “wind for oil” grant. The money is to fund the purchase of one of the ceramic-block units, although it can be used for any renewable energy or efficiency investment.

In return for providing the storage, Highland Wind will supply wind power to residents at a deeply discounted price.

Fuel oil is presently running at about $3 (U.S.) a gallon. The discounted price will be equivalent to about $1.15 per gallon of oil.

The other Maine project involves Vinalhaven Island — an entire island with small communities dotted around it that has committed entirely to wind power. But like P.E.I., it has had to sell some off-hours power or shut down some of its turbines.

The project looks like a winner for the local economy, as well as individual users.

The total project is estimated to cost more than $210 million, most of which will go directly into the state economy through engineering, environmental, construction and related jobs. At peak construction, the project will bring more than 300 jobs to the local region. And every year, the project will pay more than $500,000 in state, local and county taxes.

That’s a lot of benefits for the application of what is really an old idea. There is, after all, nothing new about using ceramic blocks to store heat, and similar heaters are already in use in Britain to even out peak demand on its electricity grid.

But an old idea becomes new again if it means reduced reliance on oil.

Ideas for a rational electricity policy platform

Rod Taylor

We are about 10 months away from the next Ontario provincial election, and electricity policy is likely to be one of the top five ballot issues. What follows is a short list of ideas, available free to any political party, on what should make up an electricity policy platform.

1. Reaffirm the principle that making Ontario’s electricity prices competitive with our neighbours is the overriding objective. This principle has been sadly neglected in the recent “maximum renewables whatever the cost” era of Ontario’s Green Energy Act. The price of electricity should be set in the market, but electricity policy should be guided by a comprehensive, independent regulatory analysis of which of the various generation, transmission and demand management options offer the lowest, long-term life-cycle costs.

This analysis should consider all costs, including environmental, such as the cost of long-term nuclear waste storage, mercury emissions from flooding, greenhouse-gas impacts from backing up intermittent solar and wind generation, etc.

2. Recognize that dispatchability is key to operating a power system. Demand and supply must be instantaneously matched, and this means generators must be dispatched on and off the system. Wind and solar power are intermittent, variable and non-dispatchable. Hydroelectricity is renewable and dispatchable.

There are 2000 megawatts of hydro power waiting to be developed in Ontario’s north. In its 2007 integrated plan, the Ontario Power Authority said this option is the most cost-effective of all renewables, including the cost of transmission incorporation.

3. Overcome Ontario’s delusional obsession with electricity self-sufficiency. It is delusional because two-thirds of our power is made from primary energy sources (uranium, natural gas, coal) sourced outside the province. If Boston can rely on northern Canadian hydro power for a substantial portion of its power, why can't Toronto? Ontario sits between the two lowest-cost power jurisdictions in Canada – Manitoba and Quebec. Once we’ve built out our own untapped and renewable northern hydro power, let’s import more from our neighbours. Ontario has world-beating expertise in transmitting high voltage power through climate and distance; let’s use it.

4. Revise the Clean Energy Act. Dramatically reduce the terms for new purchased power to five years; reduce the size of any single installation; reduce the subsidy offered; restore local planning authorities; make competitive electricity prices an objective of the act.

5. Rationalize Ontario’s power sector. The government has announced its intention to reduce the number of agencies, boards and commissions as part of its austerity program. Recombining parts of the power sector must be done with extreme care. For example, the planning parts of the OPA could be merged with the Independent Electricity System Operator, but if the contracting for long-term supply that the OPA currently does joins the IESO, the “I” (for “independent”) will be lost and the credibility of the Ontario market structure destroyed.

There is, however, room in Ontario’s power sector for significant rationalization and that’s on the distribution wires side. This sector offers major opportunities for economies of scale. Local distribution companies should be encouraged to amalgamate or, at the least, share scalable network services (e.g. billing, metering, forestry, line maintenance) to reduce costs.

6. Do not build social programs on the backs of ratepayers. No future government will be elected on the basis of tax increases; but unlike in other sectors (mining, forestry, chemicals, steel, autos, telecom, gas distribution, etc.), in the electricity sector, the province owns the lion’s share of the assets and can send directives to the regulator.

This tempts every government to build social programs (e.g. employment programs) and charge them to the electricity ratepayer (e.g. creating an Ontario nuclear industry, or an Ontario industrial windmill manufacturing industry). No new taxes should also mean no further plundering of the capital pool made available by raising electricity rates by ministerial direction. The best way to prevent this in future is by taking the assets out of the province’s hands, and relying on a well-funded, independent regulator to protect the consumer without ministerial direction.

By taking these six positions, a political party would have a rational and comprehensible electricity policy to offer voters in the October, 2011, election.

Rod Taylor is former executive vice-president, Hydro One, and was a member of the board of the Ontario Independent Market Operator and sat on Ontario’s Market Design Committee.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/ideas-for-a-rational-electricity-policy-platform/article1876455/

Ontario’s new dilemma: Too much power

John SpearsBusiness Reporter
Ontario residents were bemused to discover that on New Year’s Day 2011, on average, they were paid to use electricity.

If that seemed unusual – and it is – it’s only the start.

Within the next two years, the conditions that produced the bonus New Year’s power could crop up about one day in every seven, according to an analysis by the agency that runs Ontario’s power market.

A big reason: about 5,000 megawatts of wind powered generation is due to be connected to the Ontario grid in the next few years, producing surges of power that are more than the province needs.

The power surplus may be a head-scratcher for consumers, who saw blackouts and power shortages only a few years ago.

But energy bureaucrats are now hard at work trying to head off the impending surpluses, which force the province to give away power not just to customers in Ontario, but also to the U.S.

The focus of their efforts is a report prepared by the Independent Electricity System Operator(IESO), which operates the provincial power grid.

The report notes that 5,000 megawatts of wind generation capacity will come on stream by 2013. (This is roughly the amount of power Toronto uses on a hot day.)

That flood of new wind power changes the balance of energy, says the report.

“The IESO would experience surplus conditions roughly 14.5% of the time based on average wind output,” it predicts.

Under normal market conditions that would cause the price to fall to zero or below and some generators would shut down.

But the new wind farms, operating under current contracts that pay the operator 13.5 cents a kilowatt hour, would see all of their power flow onto the grid at the contract price.

Customers shouldn’t start anticipating lower bills. Although the market price might show up as zero, customers are still on the hook for the contractual prices awarded to wind producers. That’s collected through the “provincial benefit” payment that shows up as a separate line on the bills of customers who buy from retailers. Other customers also pay, but it’s buried in their energy charge.

Most generators don’t suffer, despite the zero price. The majority sell their power at prices fixed by the Ontario Energy Board, or contracts through the Ontario Power Authority, all of which are funded through the provincial benefit payments.

There’s one other, counter-intuitive problem with increased wind generation. At the moment, more wind power means more gas-fired power.

Because wind power is variable, it has to be backed up by natural gas-fired generators, kept idling to be switched in if the wind dips.

The reserve generators also have to be paid for, and they boost carbon emissions that wind power is supposed to prevent.

Bruce Campbell, vice president of the IESO, is working on the issues raised by the wind power increase.

Part of the solution: Start treating wind like other generators and shut them out of the system if their power isn’t needed, and call them in when it is.

Energy bureaucrats, who never use a straightforward word when they can invent a technical term, call that “dispatching” power.

At the moment, all wind power automatically flows into the system. Rules may be needed to limit the flow when there’s too much.

“We need to integrate the wind generation,” says Campbell. “We want to be able to dispatch wind just as we do other generation.”

Potentially, that means having to tell a wind farm operator that we only need two-thirds of the power it is likely to produce today or tomorrow.

One of the issues Campbell is now discussing with the power industry is how to do that. If someone gets shut out, who is it to be, and what, if anything, should they get paid?

That’s a crucial question for wind farms, says Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA).

Hornung acknowledges that as wind power increases, the rules will change.

“There’s always been a strong desire among system operators to ensure that wind ultimately will be treated like other forms of generation.”

But he says his members have to know what the new rules are if their output is put on hold.

“Is there any compensation? If there is, what formula is that based on? Those details really matter,” he said.

Better weather forecasting is also essential to better wind management, says Campbell. The more lead time the system has to anticipate wind quantities, the better, and the IESO is looking for ways to get precise forecasting.

When wind is going to be strong, it may be a good time for a nuclear plant to schedule some short-term maintenance work, or for water-powered generators to collect water behind dams for use when the wind slackens, he says.

In addition, power users can be invited to take advantage of markets when demand is slack. Some industries can plan a short-term production speed-up if they know there’s going to be lots of power and low prices the next day.

Better forecasting should also decrease the need for keeping back-up generation running, says Campbell.

But the details of who gets to produce, and how much they’ll be paid, when there’s a power surplus, remain to be decided. The IESO is now gathering opinions.

Hornung says CanWEA has yet to make its submission, but will do so.

“It’s a discussion we all need to have.”

Ontario’s new dilemma: Too much power - thestar.com

European Supergrid Slowly Coming into Focus

I would be very excited to hear about how people might envision this concept for Canada and all of North America. See the link at the bottom to watch a very informative video on the European Supergrid.

A new agreement is one more step forward on the long journey to develop offshore renewable energy infrastructure and unlock gigawatts of wind power capacity.

London, UK – In early December 2010, as Europe was grappling with sovereign debt crises and angry protests swept through its cities, a group of Ministers and grid operators met quietly to sign a deal that could help to secure the development of hundreds of gigawatts of renewable energy capacity.

The Northsea Countries Offshore Grid Initiative Memorandum of Understanding is the latest step in an ambitious program to put in place the infrastructure and market conditions to ensure that renewable energy generated offshore can be fed into the grid and brought to where it is most needed. The supergrid is considered an essential step in the development of Northern Europe's offshore wind industry and has the potential to unlock billions of euros in investment in key infrastructure.

At the heart of the plan is a vast series of undersea grid connections stretching down the coasts of the UK, France, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and possibly even down into Spain and Portugal. This offshore development would be combined with an improved onshore network, a more uniform system of grid management and interconnecting High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) cables between countries.

Currently there are around 35-40 GW of offshore wind power capacity in various stages of planning in the UK alone, with many other countries in the region also laying out ambitious plans. Long term, the projections are for more than 169 GW of offshore wind operating in the North Sea by the middle of the century.

“The North Sea is such a fantastic energy resource for renewables that can service the whole region and a single electricity market will facilitate that sort of exploitation,” said Alex Murley, of RenewableUK, a group familiar with the project.

“It would allow you to cost effectively develop energy resources on a regional rather than a national level. 95% of current electricity is consumed within the country in which it is generated. Can you imagine Spain consuming 95% of its oranges?” asked Murley.

While non-binding, the recently signed MOU builds on previous in-principle agreements and seeks to promote cooperation in developing an offshore grid. Currently, there are three working groups set up to examine and tackle the technical, political and regulatory barriers.

The idea of an offshore suprgrid has been around for many years, and one of its main evangelists is Dr. Eddie O'Conner, CEO of Maintream Renewable Power and formerly of Airtricity. Back in 2002 O’Conner helped to conceive Friends of the Offshore Supergrid (FOSG), an industry-led body that was formally set up in March 2010 to push for speedier development of grid infrastructure.

“The FOSG came together to promote the concept of a supergrid. We have assembled the supply chain: providing the consulting engineers, the manufacturers of the HVDC equipment, the cable manufacturers and so on. We intend to advise governments as to how the supergrid can be rolled out as a single grid,” he explained in an interview with Wind Energy Update last year.

Despite the recent progress there remains a number of unresolved issues over who will own and operate the grid, who will pay for it and who will profit.

“There are various different ownership models and operator models. It is something that the third package [EU's latest energy policy] is looking at. The merchant model approach is something that is on the table now and we would look to encourage in the future,” commented Murley.

'Merchant model' refers to a system under which new companies could be established to develop and own offshore interconnectors or other infrastructure.

There also remains the question of political will, since the development of a large offshore grid will revolutionize European energy markets, bringing a single energy market significantly closer than governments have so far been willing or able to do.

Nonetheless, there does appear to be momentum behind the proposals. The third European energy package contains much of the policy basis for an offshore grid, with its emphasis on market liberalization and unbundling of grid ownership, energy generation and transmission. Despite some opposition from EU heavyweights France and Germany, the package was adopted in 2009, an example of the broad support it enjoys. New pan-European bodies such as European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-e) and Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) have been established to help improve communication and coordination across the sector.

While there are a great number of details still to be worked out before a clearer picture of the new grid emerges, a number of concrete proposals are already in the planning. By 2020, RenewableUK estimates that there may be around 25 GW of offshore wind power capacity in UK waters (up from just over 1 GW today).

At the same time there are concrete plans for an additional 6.5 GW of interconnector cables linking the UK to the rest of Europe (at present there are 2.45 GW of interconnectors). The ability to trade large volumes of electricity with its neighbors should greatly enhance the usefulness of the UK’s offshore wind resources and overcome the challenges of intermittency associated with wind power.

Below is a video put together by Mainstream Renewable Power on the potential for Europe's supergrid. It's a big vision. But if it works as planned, it could give Europe a big advantage in the offshore wind space.

European Supergrid Slowly Coming into Focus | Renewable Energy News Article

Ontario opposition would seek green energy changes

Here's an article that I feel is important for Ontario solar, wind and hydroelectric developers, supporters, opposition and voters to be informed about.  

I understand the concerns of the Progressive Conservatives. Any new government's decisions and actions must well thought out. Analyze and understand the near term benefits and longterm impacts to the greater renewable industry involved (developers, operators, manufacturers, installers, communities, First Nations etc.).

If new rates are deemed fair and justified, the industry and the rate base will understand.  Threatening to kill the Green Energy Act (feed in tariff, related programs and procedures) without an immediate system in place will reboot a repeating industry boom and bust cycle that Ontario's renewable industry has experienced over the last 3 decades.  

Read below:

By Nicole Mordant

VANCOUVER, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Ontario's opposition Progressive Conservative Party would overhaul the province's feed-in tariff program for producers of renewable energy if it wins the October provincial election because it is too expensive, a party leader said on Wednesday.

The Conservatives, who have a double-digit lead over the governing Liberal Party in opinion polls, would also comb through existing contracts handed out under the incentive plan to see if changes can be made, said John Yakabuski, who is in line to take over as energy minister if his party takes power.

"Going forward, absolutely, we would not be signing these contracts," Yakabuski said.

"We are not going tear up contracts, but I can tell you we are going to look at each and every one of those contracts to see what options we have," he told Reuters in an interview.

Ontario, Canada's most populous province, has attracted billions of dollars in investment from foreign and domestic producers of renewable energy since it launched North America's richest and comprehensive feed-in tariff program late in 2009.

The program, which is aimed at creating jobs and eliminating coal-fired power plants to cut greenhouse gases, pays above-market rates under 20 year contracts to solar, wind, water and biomass power producers who meet certain criteria.

Ratepayers, who bear the costs of the program, have started to complain as their monthly power bills have risen.

"The problem is that the consumer pays and that is the tremendous, terrible wrong of their program," Yakabuski said.

He said the Conservatives were in favor of closing down coal-fired power stations and encouraging the development of renewable energy, but contracts for new power had to be awarded through a competitive bidding process.

The Conservatives have not yet issued their official energy policy but will do so well before the Oct. 6 election, he said.

The biggest investor in the Ontario green energy program to date is a consortium led by South Korea's Samsung C&T (000830.KS: Quote), which was awarded a C$7 billion ($7.01 billion) contract a year ago to build wind and solar projects and set up manufacturing plants.

Other foreign investors include Germany's Siemens AG (SIEGn.DE:Quote), which plans to build a wind turbine plant in the province, Bosch Solar Energy AG (BSLRF.PK: Quote) and Japan's Marubeni Corp (8002.T:Quote).

"I think the posture of the Conservatives is slowing some investment," said Michael Carten, chief executive of Sustainable Energy Technologies Ltd (STG.V: Quote), which has partnered with Bosch to build solar modules and inverters.

"I am sure that some of the big players are saying 'I have to see some continuity on this, let's see what will happen after the fall'," he said.

($1=$0.99 Canadian) (Editing by Rob Wilson)

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