The Rural Voice, 2004-05, Page 2728 -55 -per cent of their power and in
one area. 130 per cent.
In Europe, generation of
electricity from wind is increasing by
30-40 per cent per year and most of it
comes from small projects. In
Germany 200,000 households own
shares in wind turbine projects: small
scale projects but large -capacity
turbines. In Denmark, a quarter of
windpower capacity is owned by co-
operatives. In addition, 80,000
people in Germany are employed
producing electricity from wind.
By harnessing the investment
power of communities and co-
operatives, Ontario has the
opportunity to catch up fast to
countries that are far ahead of them,
Gipe said. It took Denmark 16 years
to reach the scale of 2,000 installed
megawatts of wind generation, he
said. Germany took just seven years
to get its first 2.000 megawatts and
only four more to reach the second
2,000 megawatts. Ontario could
reach 2,000 megawatts in only four
years if it put the right policies in
place and investors responded.
Today's larger capacity, more
efficient turbines can help
Ontario catch up, he said. New
turbines produce from one megawatt
all the way up to five megawatts with
some 3-3.5 megawatt installations
planned in Ontario.
It takes about a year of monitoring
the wind strength on a specific site to
determine if there is enough steady
wind to generate power but Gipe said
there are probably more places in
Ontario that are suitable for wind
power than just the Iakeshore
regions.
"The wind is where you look for
it," he said. "Whenever we have
looked for wind we've found it. My
objective is to get the price high
enough to get turbines up. then we'll
find where the wind is."
In addition to advanced renewable
tariffs, the other key to growth of
wind power in the countryside is the
recognition of the right of the farmer
to install the windmills on his land
and that the windmill be treated just
like another part of the farm, Gipe
said.
Unlike huge hydro and nuclear
generation projects, windpower can
be up and running relatively quickly,
he said. The big windmills, with
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