Tag Archives: FIT program

Impact analysis shows no benefit from solar panels on North Grenville building

17 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by in Renewable energy

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Facility Rental

Renting roof for solar panels? Not worth the risk, North Grenville decides

This story is about solar power, not wind, but is remarkable for two reasons: first, a municipality actually took a measured approach to a decision about “green” energy, and second, the results of the thorough impact analysis showed there was little or no benefit to the municipality from putting solar panels on a public building. In fact, there were substantial liabilities.

If the same approach were to be taken for wind power projects, including an analysis of such impacts as property value loss and social costs, we believe the result could be the same: wind power is high-impact for low benefit.

Two Auditors General have recommended that the province undertake a cost-benefit analysis for its whole green energy program—this has never been done. Kudos to North Grenville.

Kemptville Advance, September 17, 2016

MUNICIPALITY SAYS NO TO SOLAR PANELS

Jennifer Westendorp

Staff have recommended to council not to proceed with the proposal to install solar panels on the North Grenville Municipal Centre arena roof.

SunSmart Solar, a company located in Kemptville, made the presentation at the Aug. 24 committee of the whole meeting, requesting the municipality consider leasing the arena roof for 20 years for the installation of solar panels as part of the provincial Feed-In-Tariff Program (FIT).

… Mark Guy, director of parks, recreation and culture, conducted an analysis of the benfits and risk involved with the proposal which he presented September 8.

“There are many factors to consider when assessing the installation of solar panels onto the NGMC roof,” the document read, “as part of the FIT program, including the insurance and risk tolerance, safety of fire personnel, approval from the building owner, installation and maintenance, terms of the proposal under the FIT program and the procurement process.”

…the municipality’s risk manager, Frank Cowan Company, expressed concerns about liability exposures and more particularly the tenant’s legal liability and the general liability coverage…. Guy added the municipality’s insurance premium would increase as a result of the installation.

He [Guy] said the second things staff considered when looking over the proposal was the safety of fire personnel, such as the ability to shut down the electricity in the event of a fire in a building equipped with a solar panel system that generates electricity.

He said the third factor considered was approval from the building owner. Guy explained the NGMC is not owned solely by the municipality, but rather a separate and distinct corporation known as the North Grenville Community Care Corporation … a P3 Partnership…This separate corporation is owned by the municipality and the Taggart Group of Companies. Guy said the NGMC was not designed based on climatic data for the area and certain collateral loads, which didn’t include solar panels. [Editor’s note: Translation–the roof wasn’t designed to bear the additional load of solar panels.]

…SunSmart anticipates never having to go on the roof for maintenance. “The panels will not be cleaned off in the winter months,” said Guy. “The issue of falling snow would be a concern because the surface of the panels are less resistant, allowing snow to fall on the parking lot area, possibly damaging vehicles or injuring pedestrians.”

The final factor considered was the terms of the proposal under the FIT program. Guy said SunSmart proposed after 20 years, ownership of the panels would pass to the municipality at no cost, with a projection the panels would be at mid-life by then.

 

 

Brinston not a test case, community not lab rats

08 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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You may recall that in last month’s edition of Farmers Forum, North Gower-Richmond farm owner Ed Schouten (the proponent in the North Gower wind power project) said he looked forward to the start-up on the project at Brinston, as it would serve as a “test case” for people who had doubts about how great wind power is.

Lots of letters flew in to the Editor, and we will reproduce them all. First though, the letter from Brinston resident Leslie Disheau who wants to put Mr Schouten straight on a few issues.

Brinston divided on wind turbines

Letter, Farmers Forum March 2014

I am going to begin with setting the record straight on the use of the term “wind farm.” This term is a skewed way of making the industrialization of farming practices more palatable to the general public by international wind development companies.

Farming practices and the farming industry have quietly moved into industrial practices while still enjoying the government subsidy/benefit programs to help sustain their bottom line, and keep their competitive edge with fluctuating world markets.

These healthy government subsidy/benefit programs are not available to any other sector of industry in Ontario. If you are going to industrialize then you should have to play by the same industry standards and requirements which currently govern all industry in Ontario.

Farm lands are now being used to host electricity producing machines, not growing food to feed cities. So let us term these industrial electricity projects correctly and allow this industry to be taxed accordingly, and without lucrative FIT contracts for 20 years.

We, the people in Brinston, Dixon’s Corners and Hulbert, directly affected by the siting of 10 30-megawatt industrial wind turbines, have every right to be upset and speak out. The Green Energy Act has stripped us of our rights to say “no” and our right to protect the well-being of our families; allowed for the devaluation of our homes; permits wildlife to be killed, harmed and harrassed; and takes top qality farmland out of food production. The rural community of Brinston is very much living with and feeling divided by this South Branch wind project.

“I am not a test animal, and my community is not a ‘test case,’ Mr Schouten”

I personally take great offence to Mr. Schouten’s comment that the “Brinston turbines will be a good test case for the rest of the area.” I am not a test animal. I am a person and my community should not be referred to as a “test case,” like a lab study.

As for Mr. Winslow’s statement about “negative publicity” and “far too much emotion,” I speak up with passion because I value my family’s health and well-being, take pride in my home and property, and understand what stewardship of the land and animals really means. I get emotional when someone makes a decision, without my consent, which directly changes life for my family and the community.

I have spent three years reading and looking at the research for both sides of this issue, from around the world, and can say I sit on the negative side of the fence–I made an educated decision to do so.

Leslie Disheau

Brinston, Ontario

The writer has one 3-MW turbine 836 meters from the front of her family home, and another 900 meters from the rear.The South Branch project, initiated by Germany-based Prowind,and purchased by US-based EDP, began operations March 4.

BrinstonTurbine BaseAerial shot of base for one of the Brinston turbines, prior to construction last year. Brinston is 30 minutes south of Ottawa, Ontario

 

Lisa MacLeod roars on the Green Energy Act!

06 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by in Renewable energy, Wind power

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Yesterday was the occasion for debate on the Green Energy Act, as the government is now scrambling to correct its domestic input policy—illegal as determined by the World economic regulatory body.

Nepean-Carleton MPP and PC Energy Critic Lisa MacLeod covered the gamut of problems with the Green Energy Act in her speech. You may read the full account here (recommended). An excerpt follows:

…But if they want to talk about children’s health, I’ll talk about a child’s health. I’ll talk about Madi Vanstone, who every day we’ve brought up in the assembly here. I can’t help but think that the Ontario that I live in, the Ontario that I’m raising my daughter in, is spending $22 billion for 1% of energy to make Liberal friends rich when little girls in this province who need life-saving drugs can’t get them. And why can’t she get them? Because this Premier said it costs too much. She said that it costs too much; we couldn’t afford it. We could afford to make Mike Crawley a rich man, we can afford to make NextEra a rich company and we can ensure that Samsung basically has a seat at the cabinet table here, but apparently our government cannot and will not choose to support a child who needs help. That’s the reality that we’re in in Ontario today. People can’t understand it. It was well documented, I thought, by Christina Blizzard. I thought she laid out the case on that quite clearly, and I thought that she pointed out what most people in Ontario are saying.
You look at the cost of power now—and I had the opportunity to speak to the supply motion, I guess it was a week ago. I talked about the opportunity I had to visit many of my colleagues’ ridings and talk to many people who are in their communities, and we talked about the high cost of energy and how that is hurting the people of this province and hurting manufacturers, and we talked about what our plan would be.
We’ve written a number of white papers. Some of them were just, effectively, ideas that we put forward that we’ll run on; others were ideas for discussion that we’ve talked about. But, very clearly, people are looking for a rational solution to the mismanagement by the government.
We’ve put forward a number of, I think, very thoughtful ideas and very sensible ideas to review not only the existing Green Energy Act—I think we’ve been very clear that we would repeal it—but we also talked about looking at some of the entities that we have in Ontario, like the OPG and Hydro One, monetizing them to bring more accountability. We know that there are some very serious and straightforward concerns there. We know, for example, that we’re exporting about $1 billion worth of power. …
You think about this: He has just acknowledged in this House that to create 1.1% of power is $22 billion. They had to acknowledge, albeit it was the Auditor General who forced them, that it was $1.1 billion for them to save five seats. With that amount of waste and that amount of mismanagement, we could not only eradicate our deficit, but we could make significant investments into our communities in health care and education, and we would still have power that we wouldn’t have to export. A novel idea, Speaker, but that is the reality; it is the truth, and it is something that we have said consistently—and the only party to do so since 2009.
That’s why we stand here day in and day out. We stand for the people in Strathroy and Stratford. We talk to the people in Cobourg, the people in Oxford and the people in Barry’s Bay. We talk about the people who are opposing these high subsidies and who are opposing these invasions on their land. We talk to them. We ask them to stay in Ontario and make sure that they continue to support us so that we can change this.
…
Let me be abundantly clear, Speaker: This is a government who is too concerned with its own ideology, and too concerned with its buddies that they could make a little bit more rich, that they had no concern whatsoever about the people paying the bill; that they have no concern whatsoever of the broader implications in an international trade war that they have now thrust us into. They don’t care, Speaker. They didn’t do their job at the beginning.
They’re not doing their job now, they didn’t do their job then, and everybody in Ontario is paying for it.

Support for Bill 39 Affordable Energy Act

18 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by in Health, Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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Energy economist Robert Lyman has provided us a copy of his letter to MPP Lisa MacLeod in support of Bill 39 for the Affordable Energy Act, which will be read today. The wind power corporate lobby group has been working hard to oppose this bill, which would see cancellation of the Feed In Tariff subsidy which is bankrupting Ontario and providing huge subsidies to wind power developers, return of local land use planning control for renewable energy projects, and the requirement that wind power projects provide power at competitive prices.

His rationale is worth reading.

Ms Macleod,

I am writing with respect to Huron-Bruce MPP’s proposed Bill 39, the Affordable Energy Act, which I understand will receive second reading in the Ontario legislature today. As you know, the bill would authorize the return to municipalities of local land use planning control for renewable energy projects. It would also require that that proposed wind power projects supply power at a price competitive with other sources of power. I appreciate that is is very difficult to obtain legislative approval for Private Members’ Bills, but I think the committee meeting on this subject is an appropriate time to raise the awareness of the legislature and perhaps the media concerning the major problems associated with the Green Energy Act.
Here are a few points you may wish to bear in mind.
The current FIT subsidy for on-shore wind turbines of 13.5 cents per kWh. One should note the comments and findings in Chapter 3 of the Auditor General of Ontario’s 2011 Annual Report ( My personal comments are in brackets):
– “Many other jurisdictions set lower FIT prices than Ontario and have the mechanisms to limit the total costs arising from FIT programs”.
– “Ontario’s FIT prices were originally designed with the intention of allowing a reasonable rate of return, defined as 11% after-tax return on equity.” (In today’s market, even the riskiest of investments don’t get an 11 % rate of return; the FIT prices, in contrast, are guaranteed for the twenty-year life of the contract. There is no risk at all.)
– “There was minimal documentation to support how FIT prices were calculated to achieve the targeted return on equity, because of the numerous changes in the financial model and assumptions made by the Ontario Power Authority”. (The method of determining the FIT prices was, and remains, obscure.)
– “There has been a lack of independent oversight on the reasonableness of FIT prices. Although the OEB has historically been mandated to oversee and approve electricity prices, it has no role or legislative responsibility to review or approve FIT prices.”
– “”The internal rates of return offered to the developers in Germany and Spain varied depending on market risks and ranged from just 5% to 7% in Germany to between 7% and 10% in Spain. When Ontario’s FIT prices were first developed in spring 2009, they were already higher than those in Germany and Spain, which have both significantly dropped their FOIT prices since then due to lower component costs arising from technological advances”
– (Ontario’s FIT price for onshore wind installations is higher that that in Michigan, Wisconsin, Denmark, Germany, Spain and South Korea. Only in Vermont and Washington are FIT prices higher.)
I would add that, of all the various elements of the Green Energy Act, the withdrawal of authority from municipalities to exercise land use planning control over the construction of renewable energy installations is probably the most egregious. It is an affront to democracy that the governments most closely associated with the affects these installations have lost their ability to protect the public.
Bob Lyman
Nepean
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Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com
Donations welcome at PO Box 3 North Gower ON  K0A 2T0

Wind power: $200 million a year to Ontario power customers

27 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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In today’s Toronto Star (often a Liberal party mouthpiece) a story on how much Ontario’s decision to promote wind power at the expense of everything else, including hydro, is costing the people of Ontario $200 million per year. And yet, the province plans to triple the capacity… and thus triple the expense.

We can believe it: MP Pierre Poilievre commissioned the Library of Parliament to study the wind power project proposed for North Gower-Richmond and the results were that the project will cost Ontario ratepayers $4.8 million per year in subsidies. That amount doesn’t cover the cost of transmission lines (about a million per km) to service the project.

The story is here http://www.thestar.com/business/2013/02/26/surplus_wind_power_could_cost_ontario_ratepayers_up_to_200_million_ieso.html

Meanwhile, power rates climb. Ontario MPP Sylvia Jones rose in the Legislature today to tell of customers whose power bills are now higher than their mortgage bills, and of small business that are just giving up and closing down.

This is not a recipe for success in Ontario.

The Ontario government MUST halt all approvals of wind power projects now, and cancel the Feed In Tariff program. No choice about it.

Email us at ottawawindconcerns@gmail.com

Donations welcome at PO Box 3, North Gower ON  K0A 2T0