The Rural Voice, 2004-05, Page 26Could the answer to Ontario's
energy shortage be
Blowin' in the
wind?
How the right policies could turn
farmers into electricity providers
By Keith Roulston
1111
Paul Gipe (with microphone) and Ted Cowan explain energy alternatives.
There was a time when if you
told people that a standing -
room -only crowd of 250
farmers had showed up for a meeting
on alternative energy on April 1, they
would have said you were pulling an
April Fool's Day joke.
Of course back then they would
also have thought it was a prank if
you had said the main -stream Ontario
Federation of Agriculture had
organized a meeting on farm -
generated power and brought in Paul
Gipe, acting executive director of the
Ontario Sustainable Energy
Association and a California
windpower advocate, to speak.
But in both cases it was no joke
and the fact 250 people showed up in
Stratford April 1 to hear Gipe and
Ted Cowan, the OFA's alternative
energy researcher, shows that
alternative energy, often formerly
seen as the preserve of ageing
hippies, is suddenly a hot topic on the
farm. Perhaps the interest was
spurred by the April 1 raising of the
cap on electricity rates: something
that was also no joke to the people in
the room.
"That was one of the most eager
audiences I've addressed in many
years," said Gipe afterward.
22 THE RURAL VOICE
With the Ontario government
raising the cap on electricity prices
and pledging to shut down coal-fired
generation plants, there's a new
immediacy in the issue of renewable
energy. Gipe added an extra urgency
when he said the provincial
government is going to adopt a
renewable energy strategy soon and
urged those in the room to contact
Ontario Minister of Energy Dwight
Duncan and press the government to
adopt Advanced Renewable Tariffs, a
stable, guaranteed -pricing structure
that would make it attractive for
ordinary people to go into the
electrical generation business. Gipe
said he was afraid the government
might listen to the advice of big
business and adopt bidding or quota
systems that would deliver energy
generation into the arms of big
business.
Gipe, who came up from
California to head OSEA because he
was excited about the possibilities in
Ontario, used examples from
Germany and Denmark to show how
electrical generation could become a
new cash crop for the province's
farmers if the advanced renewable
tariff structure was adopted. In
Germany, farmers, homeowners and
co-operatives have invested $7
billion in wind turbines.
If Ontario farmers were to band
together to build large turbines like
the one megawatt windmill at
Exhibition Place in Toronto, he
argued, they could earn $150,000 per
turbine in revenue.
What farmers get out of wind
power will depend on how much they
put into it, Gipe said. The least risky
proposition is simply leasing land to
a company that will erect a turbine.
Generally there is a payment for land
used to put up the turbine plus a
royalty on revenues. But he warned
landowners to beware speculators
who would tie up the rights to erect
wind turbines on their land with no
guarantee the units will be built.
Get royalties on all revenues, he
advised, not just on the electricity
produced. If there are "green" credits
given to the builders by the
government, you won't receive any
payment if you've simply agreed to a
royalty on power sales.
In Germany, companies pay a
royalty of five per cent but the offers
Gipe's been hearing about in Ontario
are only two per cent, the low end of
the list of royalties offered in
different countries.
Profits increase if communities
get together to build their own
turbines, Gipe said. A one megawatt
turbine would cost $1.5 million to get
running. If Advanced Renewable
Tariffs are instituted at a rate of 10
cents per kilowatt hour, the turbine
would generate $150,000 a year,
paying for itself in 10 years. If half
the farms in Ontario had one
megawatt wind turbines installed,
Gipe dreamed, they could pump $4
billion through the rural economy
and generate a third of Ontario's
power needs.
Ontario has a long way to go to
even get on the map of generation of
electricity from wind power. Canada
has one of the worst records in the
world and Ontario is at the bottom of
the list in Canada but Gipe was
attracted to Ontario because "you
have the time to get it right."
While Ontario's windpower
production doesn't even register,
Spain is producing two per cent of its
electricity from wind, Germany, four
per cent and Denmark, 17 per cent. In
some areas of Denmark they produce