Why Ontario’s Clean Energy Benefit Makes Sense – Sort Of

We hesitate to admit it (because we dislike anything that distorts the true cost of energy to ratepayers), but in a roundabout way, the Clean Energy Benefit (CEB) announced by Ontario’s Government on November 17 makes economic sense. Although the CEB appears to simply be a way of keeping electricity bills from climbing too fast (which surely is the political purpose of the CEB ) – it actually reflects the reality of how renewable energy creates... [Read More...]

Project Development in a Grid-Locked World

by Robert Wakulat, Contributor In an open conference call on March 24, 2010, Hydro One warned of the capacity issues it is currently facing in connecting distributed energy generation projects to the grid. Hydro One is the largest transmission and distribution company in Ontario. It operates over 96% of the province’s high-voltage transmission capacity by revenue and is among Ontario’s largest low-voltage “Local Distribution Companies” (referred... [Read More...]

Biofuels: Path to Commercial Viability

Biofuels are often held up as the renewable energy source with the greatest potential to replace oil in our current economic system. Biofuel experts have suggested that biofuels could replace oil in almost all of its applications and its cost is likely to be at or below the cost of oil production within the coming decade. Apart from the obvious advantage of being a sustainable source of energy that at the same time is a viable alternative for those... [Read More...]

Ontario Launches Feed-In Tariffs

On March 12, Ontario’s Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Rt Hon George Smitherman, announced the proposed feed-in tariffs for producers of renewable energy under Ontario’s new Green Energy Act. The proposed tariffs were developed by the Ontario Power Authority on Minister Smitherman’s request. [Read More...]  Read More →