POWER March 2011 - 49

POWER IN CANADA
to do the work, particularly in the integration between the refurbishment
and operational units. "
Feed-in Frenzy. A cornerstone of the Green Energy Act is the
feed-in tariff (FIT) program. The FIT program establishes an open
and guaranteed stable price structure under long-term contracts
in order to make renewable electricity development economically
viable. More than 1,000 FIT contracts are currently in place for
clean energy projects. Minister Duguid enthusiastically supports
the program: " We are leading the charge on green energy. The
feed-in tariff system that Germany and Spain operate has been
something we've looked at, and we've come up with our own Ontario
version. Our FIT program has gone from design to launch in
just a year and a half, and we've just awarded 2,500 megawatts of
contracts. That's $9 billion worth of activity. "
In order to ensure maximum benefit from the blossoming of
the green economy, these contracts include the caveat that participants
must include a 50% minimum of local content in every project.
This has led to a number of success stories for the provincial
government, the largest of which has been the $7 billion investment
by a consortium that includes Samsung and Siemens, which
have invested in a photovoltaic inverter and a wind turbine plant.
William Smith, senior vice president of the energy sector at
Siemens Canada, explains: " When we looked at the potential in
Ontario and the loyal customers that we had accumulated in the
development community, we saw that it made sense as a manufacturing
center. The factory is designed to meet local content
rules for any developer, including the Samsung Consortium, and
is a logical extension of our global supply strategy for wind turbines.
Our first priority is to serve the Ontario market, then over
time to export as a part of the overall supply chain within North
America. "
Smith notes, " This process began three or four years ago when
Ontario started to open up its renewable market and we started
developing wind projects. The success of these projects demonstrated
our ability to realize project costs effectively and on time,
which has allowed us to capture over 50% of the market over the
last 18 months. "
Ensuring that green energy jobs are created is a vital way of
demonstrating the value of the policy to rate payers. Nevertheless,
the domestic content requirement terms of the FIT program have
been criticized by some as a protectionist measure that is not in
the interest of establishing truly efficient renewable energy supply
chains.
Despite these concerns, it is clear that the international renewable
energy community sees this as a huge opportunity. " Ontario
has begun a program to create a renewable energy hub through
its progressive government policy. These programs represent the
most attractive incentive that exists in North America for solar
development, " says EDF EN Canada Inc.'s Kieron.
Québec Capitalizes on Hydro
Québec has a population of 7.8 million, an installed capacity of
38,000 MW, and a winter peak of 34,000 MW. The province is
served principally by Hydro-Québec, a government-owned monopoly
that is Canada's largest utility, operating one of the biggest
systems in Canada for the generation and distribution of electric
power. Hydro-Québec manages 83 generating facilities that supply
virtually all of the electric power distributed in Québec. In
2009, Québec exported about $1.5 billion worth of electricity and
the government of Québec received more than $2.17 billion in
dividends.
Québec's greatest energy resource is its hydropower, which
generated about 97% of the province's electricity in 2008. OthMarch
2011 | POWER
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POWER March 2011

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