Back in 2007, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) looked like it was setting a wonderful green precedent when it adopted a feed-in tariff for renewable energy. This allowed people who had adopted their own forms of renewable energy systems, like solar panels and wind turbines, to sell their excess power to the OPA at a set rate over a certain time period. Unfortunately, the OPA was accused by solar advocacy groups of setting the price too low and consequently failing to encourage the growth of any grass roots level renewable energy projects.
It looks like that issue might now be corrected as the legislature is now mulling over the idea of increasing feed-in tariff in concert with the proposed Green Energy Act. Both homeowners and renewable energy companies stand to start making better money for their clean energy this summer if the program gets approved. Renewable energy systems with the potential to qualify include: solar power, wind power, hydro, biogas, biomass and landfill gas turned to electricity.
The proposed new tariffs do a much better job of encouraging all of these, especially small-scale solar installations, which get the highest tariff. This is part of a larger effort to encourage 100,000 solar panel systems to be installed on residential rooftops. If this became a reality those solar panels would account for one percent of Ontario’s power supply. With the proposed feed-in tariff for small-scale solar projects proposed to be as high as 80.2 cents per kilowatt-hour; nearly double what a large solar plant would be paid, giving great incentive to start these kinds of small solar projects.
