However, over the last few years, the government in Canada has expressed an increasing desire to increase the overall percentage of Canadian electricity that is produced using sources of renewable energy.

1) Ontario Legislature Sings Green Energy Act. In 2009, the legislature in the province of Ontario passed the Green Energy Act. The act is said to increase new investment into the area for renewable energy, create a number of jobs within the green economy sector, and increase sustainability throughout the environment.

This act, as well as a number of complimentary regulations and policies, will supply the government with ample tools that will guarantee a place for Ontario as a leader within the North American renewable energy sector, as well as create a society where government, schools, industries, and homeowners embrace the concept of energy efficiency.

Some of the elements include mandatory home energy audits prior to sale, the development of a feed-in tariff system, and new programs to assist with diverting costs on renewable energy projects.

2) Canadian Renewable Energy Alliance. The Canadian Renewable Energy Alliance, or CanREA as it is more commonly known as, is a civil society organization that seeks to promote a worldwide transition to the use of low-impact renewable energy sources as well as energy conservation and efficiency.

Items CanREA explores include global climate change, pollution, human security, global energy supply, and economic sustainability. CanREA’s world vision includes ones where ‘energy needs are minimized through energy conservation and energy efficiency, and in which low-impact renewable energy is consistently the first choice to meet energy needs.’ CanREA works alongside the government to make necessary transitions.

3) CanmetENERGY. CanmetENERGY, part of National Resources Canada is the leader in research and development of clean energy technologies. The group consists of more than 450 scientists, technicians, and engineers and has become the center for expertise in clean energy technologies. They are the largest energy science and technology organization around.

The aim is to guarantee that Canada stands as a leader in clean energy technologies, as well as decrease greenhouse gas emissions around the country and improve the overall health of Canada’s citizens.

CanmetENERGY’s job is to ‘manage science and technology programs and services, support the development energy policy, codes and regulations, act as a window to federal financing and work with our partners to develop more energy efficient and cleaner technologies in [a number of areas]‘ which includes bio energy, renewable, transportation, and clean fossil fuels.

4) Canada is a Place for Renewable Energy Investment. Canada is seen as a great location for renewable energy investment. It has a great infrastructure, long term ‘green policies,’ a number of tax incentives, and the fact the sector is in line to grow exponentially.

Canada has a lot to offer investors, such as the country is the largest producer of hydropower, has the most access to resources for biomass in the world, a fast growing wind sector, and is the leader in solar air collector manufacturing and commercialization…

Shawn Lesser is Co-founder & Managing Partner of Atlanta-based Watershed Capital Group – an investment bank assisting sustainable fund and companies raise capital, perform acquisitions, and in other strategic financial decisions. He is also a Co-founder of the GCCA Global Cleantech Cluster Association ‘The Global Voice of Cleantech’.

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Take B.C.’s pioneering carbon tax. Nobody likes paying taxes, but for four years and through two elections, this policy has brought unexpected benefits to the people of this province. The idea is simple: Put a price on fossil fuels, so that dumping global-warming gases into the atmosphere is no longer free. As the rate gradually increases, the tax makes cleaner and more efficient alternatives to fossil fuels more viable.

A recent column by economist Mark Jaccard highlights figures from the B.C. budget that the carbon tax has paid back to British Columbians $200 million more than it has taken away. Yes, the carbon tax is actually delivering a significant tax cut, in disguise. According to Jaccard’s assessment, at least three-quarters of British Columbians are paying less today because of the carbon tax. For hundreds of thousands of us, that has meant more money in our pocket for groceries, child care, sports and other costs.

And our carbon-pricing policy has helped one of the largest clusters of clean-tech companies in the world to expand. While every other month brings news of mill closures and challenges to our traditional resource industries, clean tech stands as one of the fastest growing sectors, with hundreds of companies and thousands of employees.

Many of these companies did not exist 10 years ago. These are knowledge-based jobs that pay well above the provincial average. The sector exports a range of technologies to 50 countries -products such as wind turbines, solar panels, biofuel systems, clean transportation technologies, and smart-grid solutions British Columbia’s economic advantages have been bolstered by our leadership in the Western Climate Initiative -a regional agreement to reduce global warming pollution that is on track to kick in early next year. Through our cooperation with California, Quebec, and others, British Columbia is at the leading edge of the green economy in North America.

By Moura Quayle And John Richards, Vancouver Sun

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Without new infrastructure in the province, the Alberta and Saskatchewan-based oil industry, and the B.C.-focused natural gas industry, can’t get to what they desperately want — new customers in Asia. B.C. is also the home of some of the richest natural gas fields on the continent, making it as important to gas producers as the oil sands are to the oil sector.

In Rich Coleman, B.C.’s newly appointed energy minister, industry will find a strong ally — and other provincial governments a motivated competitor.

The province led the way under former Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell in the past decade in improving government terms and regulation to promote industry activity.

“We are completely open to defining ways do things better and be competitive,” Mr. Coleman said in an interview in the harbour-front legislature, fresh from a visit to Calgary’s energy headquarters to collect feedback and ideas.

“One of the CEOs said to me we are in the Top Five or 10 as places to invest in the energy sector, probably in the world. And I said, ‘How do I get to No. 1?’ That’s my interest.”

…As a former forest minister, Mr. Coleman is well aware of the dangers of depending on only one market — the United States. The province led the push to find customers for the province’s lumber mills in Asia, a response to trade wars and a weak housing market in the U.S. Now Mr. Coleman wants to see new markets for energy, which means building new infrastructure including liquefied natural gas terminals and pipelines to the coast. By depending on the U.S., natural gas producers in British Columbia face the additional challenge of being the farthest away from the market, increasing their shipping costs.

“A diversified market would change that and probably stabilize price both in the North American market and in the Asian market,” he said.

Two LNG terminals are being planned for Kitimat, and a third one is at an advanced planning stage, potentially transforming the B.C. coast into a busy energy export hub.

Mr. Coleman said he plans at least to hold the line, or improve, royalty terms at the front end of projects to capture long-term investment. “Exploration and development is very expensive,” he said. “So, if you can have a tax and royalty regime in your jurisdiction that attracts investment, you will get your resource developed when other jurisdictions won’t because they will have to heavy a tax regime on it.”

The steady hand is good news for industry at a time of stubbornly low gas prices and should represent insurance against royalty hikes in other places, particularly if the strategy wins popular support as the province heads into an election of its own.

Financial Post

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Canada’s Electricity Infrastructure: Building a Case for Investment, a study funded by the Canadian Electrical Association and conducted by the Conference Board of Canada, suggests that a total investment of $293.8 billion is necessary between now and 2030 to service old infrastructure and boost power generation from renewable sources like wind, solar and biomass energy.

“We want to be open and frank with Canadians, because this will all be reflected in the price of electricity,” says Pierre Guimond, president and CEO of the Canadian Electricity Association.

Investment in Canada’s electrical grid was high in the 1970s and ’80s, as power producers attempted to meet a significant growth in demand. The result was overbuilding, and supply overwhelmed demand. That helped to keep the cost of electricity low for several decades, but now major new investment is needed to replace worn out plants.

“Most of what is out there was built before 1980. We have been focused on keeping prices low and keeping reliability high for all these decades. We’ve maintained the system, but we’ve not added much large capacity to it, except for some Hydro Quebec projects,” says Guimond.

“New neighbourhoods have popped up all over the country as the population increased and we became more urbanized, and this led to a lot of increase in the distribution sector investment.”

According to the report, the largest chunk of the recommended investment — $195.7 billion — is required for power generation, with another $62.3 billion required to improve the distribution system and $35.8 billion for transmission.

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VICTORIA – Premier Christy Clark today announced a new, smaller cabinet focused on putting families first, creating jobs and changing the way British Columbians engage with their government.

“Our new cabinet will reflect the priorities of British Columbians and put families at the centre of all our decision-making,” said Premier Clark. “Together, we will focus on creating jobs and building a strong economy because that is the single most important thing we can do to support families and ensure we can invest in critical services like health and education. This is a team that will work hard to ensure that prosperity and opportunity extend to every region of our province.”

The new cabinet is made up of 17 ministers plus the premier, reduced from the previous total of 24. This includes the new Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation, which will bring together many of the functions in government focused on job creation under a single ministry. As well, three new cabinet committees reflect the priorities of government – the Committee on Families First; the Committee on Jobs and Economic Growth; and the Committee on Open Government and Engagement.

Responsibility for colleges and universities has been recombined under the Ministry of Advanced Education; responsibility for mining has been returned to the Ministry of Energy and Mines; Labour and Citizen Services have been combined; and Forests and Lands has been combined with Natural Resource Operations.

The new cabinet appointed and sworn into office by the Lieutenant-Governor in a ceremony today is:

· Premier – Hon. Christy Clark

· Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance – Hon. Kevin Falcon

· Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation – Hon. Mary Polak

· Minister of Advanced Education – Hon. Naomi Yamamoto

· Minister of Agriculture – Hon. Don McRae

· Attorney General – Hon. Barry Penner

· Minister of Children and Family Development – Hon. Mary McNeil

· Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development – Hon. Ida Chong

· Minister of Education – Hon. George Abbott

· Minister of Energy and Mines (minister responsible for Housing) – Hon. Rich Coleman

· Minister of Environment – Hon. Terry Lake

· Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations – Hon. Steve Thomson

· Minister of Health – Hon. Michael de Jong

· Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation – Hon. Pat Bell

· Minister of Labour, Citizens’ Services and Open Government – Hon. Stephanie Cadieux

· Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General – Hon. Shirley Bond

· Minister of Social Development (minister responsible for multiculturalism) – Hon. Harry Bloy

· Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure – Hon. Blair Lekstrom

Link to full news release

A white paper released earlier this month by The Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS), a B.C.-based academic research group, examined both the opportunities and risks of expanding electricity exports, as called for in the province’s 2010 Clean Energy Act.

The Clean Energy Act lays out two different types of export projects, one through the IRP process and the other through a surplus created through “self-sufficiency” requirements. The act protects ratepayers from the risk associated with the IRP process, but not from risks associated with province’s self-sufficiency requirements, the report says.

Dr. George Hoberg, from the University of British Columbia and co-author of the report, told Energy Prospects West that there are several policy gaps in the B.C. export plan.

“We need to ensure that the investments needed to build projects to export make economic sense,” Hoberg said. “We don’t have anything that requires a net-benefit test.”

The province also lacks a comprehensive land-use planning mechanism.

“How do we plan for the environmental impacts in B.C.? We do have province-wide electricity planning, but we don’t have a framework for land-use planning at the regional level that allows for the cumulative impacts of multiple projects.”

The white paper lays out six policy recommendations, including developing a revenue-sharing mechanism with local communities affected by large new energy projects.

In addition, the paper recommends that the government ensure that electricity exports do not jeopardize the reliability of domestic supply by providing guidance on setting upper limits on the proportion of B.C. electricity that can be dedicated to the export market.

The government should also require any importing jurisdiction to have meaningful demand-side management programs in place before signing an export contract.

…Still, B.C. sees a market for its renewable power, thanks to RPS requirements in states within the Western Electricity Coordinating Council’s footprint.

BC Hydro’s 2008 Long Term Acquisition Plan suggested that total renewable energy demand within WECC could reach 177,301 GWh/yr (20.2 aGW) in 2020. In 2008, 43,618 GWh/yr (5 aGW) were in service, leaving a gap in supply of renewable energy of 133,683 GWh/yr, according to BC Hydro projections.

An analysis done last year by Clean Energy B.C., a coalition of independent power producers in the province, suggested that the B.C. could capture 10 percent of the WECC market for renewables.

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That’s not only vehicle fuel, but also electric-power generation, home heating, and the many other global activities that rely on the remarkably high energy density of the hydrocarbon molecules in coal, oil, and natural gas.

Researchers from Stanford University and the University of California-Davis published their analysis in the journal Energy Policy.

Measuring costs vs benefits

The main challenges, say the authors, will be summoning the global will to make the conversion. “There are no technological or economic barriers to converting the entire world to clean, renewable energy sources,” said author Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor, saying it is only a question of “whether we have the societal and political will.”

Another challenge: accurately accounting for both the costs (which are comparatively easy to tally and project) and the benefits (which are tougher).

When looking at the cost of junking half a century’s worth of existing power plants, for example, how can electric utilities benefit from the tens of billions of dollars in public health costs that will be avoided in the future once those emissions are no longer being generated?

Those public-health benefits might include saving 2.5 to 3 million lives each year.

And then there’s the benefit of halting climate change, not to mention reductions in water pollution, and increased energy security as more of each nation’s energy is generated from within its own borders.

Step One: New generation from renewables

The authors assessed the costs, benefits, and materials requirements necessary to convert the bulk of the world’s energy usage to renewable sources.

Just as it will do over the next few decades for cars, electricity will play an increasingly large role, with 90 percent from wind turbines and various forms of solar generation.

Hydroelectric and geothermal sources would each provide about 4 percent of the total, with another 2 percent from wave and tidal power…

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This winter has seen remarkable strides in worldwide leadership on combating global warming. December alone saw Japan announce an escalating carbon tax, designed to curb fossil-fuel consumption; California’s Air Resources Board voted to adopt the large-emitter cap-and-trade provision laid out in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Clean Energy Act; and Chris Huhne, Minister of Energy in the U.K., set out a four-point program that includes a national carbon tax tied to reductions in income and employment taxes.

Curbing carbon pollution and slowing global warming while putting money in people’s pockets makes obvious sense. But there are additional benefits. California’s renewable-energy sector is now growing more rapidly than any other segment of its economy, providing tens of thousands of new, well-paying jobs while broadening the tax base. In B.C., the carbon tax is stimulating capital investment and innovation that is helping to drive the GDP associated with the green economy from $15 billion in 2008 to a projected $20 to $27 billion by 2020, as much as 15 per cent of provincial output. Some 225,000 direct and indirect green jobs will be in place by 2020, up from 166,000 in 2008.

By Thomas Pedersen, Special to the Sun

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Several of Canada’s largest energy and resource companies are quietly staking out positions in a sector that seems at odds with their usual extractive activities: the renewable power business.

Oil sands, pipeline and coal-power firms are now among the biggest players in renewables, with portfolios of wind, solar, small hydro power and ethanol production that in some cases outpace the holdings of most “pure” green companies.

Environmentalists and small companies in the sector are sanguine about the competitors; they welcome the big firms as a significant source of clout and capital that can add momentum to the shift to renewable energy.

“It reflects the reality of energy in the 21st century,” said Ian Bruce, a climate change specialist at the David Suzuki Foundation. “A lot of the innovation is happening at the small company level and then is getting [moved] up to larger businesses that have the capital to invest more.”

…Meanwhile, Calgary pipeline operator Fort Chicago Energy Partners recently bought up three small-hydro operations – Swift Power Corp., Pristine Power Inc., and the B.C. hydro assets of Enmax Corp.

…While Suncor plans to add one wind farm a year to its holdings, Mr. Lambert is loath to predict how large a proportion of its business renewables will make up. So much depends on access to power grids, provincial energy rules, and the shape of the still-undefined federal energy strategy.

It makes sense to have a diverse range of companies in the renewable business, he said. “You need to have those entrepreneurial players who are creating new ideas and innovating, then you need the big players for the growth stages of many of these technologies where access to capital is important.”

Small green energy companies agree. “The more that gets done, the better, whether it is by a pure play or by a traditional fossil fuel generator,” said Kent Brown, the former chief executive officer of Canadian Hydro who is now running a startup firm called BluEarth Renewables Inc. “We want to see projects get done and get done successfully.”

VANCOUVER, B.C. Today, Canada’s Environment Minister, the Honourable John Baird, and British Columbia’s Minister of State for Climate Action, the Honourable John Yap, announced that Canada and British Columbia will coordinate their greenhouse gas emission reporting under a national single window system.

…”Being able to report GHG emissions only once while meeting the requirements of both the federal and provincial governments will save British Columbia industries time and money,” said Minister Yap. “This is another example of the strong partnership we have with the Government of Canada, and single window reporting will be an important tool as British Columbia moves towards a regional cap-and-trade system.”

…Under the auspices of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME), the federal, provincial and territorial governments made a commitment to ensure that all jurisdictions are able to measure, track and report progress on the reduction of greenhouse gases.

On March 15, 2010, Environment Canada launched its Single Window Reporting System to collect information on greenhouse gas emissions in support of the Department’s mandatory reporting programs for greenhouse gases.

Canada is committed to reaching the target we inscribed in the Copenhagen Accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

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