Ontario Approves New Wind-Power Projects
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 11.23.05
The Canadian press reports that Ontario's government has approved nine new renewable energy projects. That means that about a thousand new wind turbines will be built, with most of them expected to be operational by the end of 2007. "The projects will be located across the province in towns such as Kincardine, Goderich, Sault Ste. Marie and Kingston. All have signed 20-year contracts with the Ontario Power Authority and will be paid 8.64 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity produced." These projects should help Ontario reach its goal of having 10% of its production (around 2,700 megawatts) come from renewables by 2010.
The nine projects were chosen from 22 proposals, totalling 2,029 megawatts of generation.The projects include:
-- Island Falls Hydroelectric Project at Smooth Rock Falls, north of Timmins; 20 megawatts.
-- Kingsbridge II Wind Power Project at Goderich, north of Sarnia; 158.7 megawatts.
-- Kruger Energy Port Alma at Port Alma, south of Chatham; 101.2 megawatts.
-- Enbridge's Leader Wind Project A at Kincardine, on the shores of Lake Huron north of London; 100.65 megawatts.
-- Enbridge's Leader Wind Project B at Kincardine; 99 megawatts.
-- Melancthon II Wind Project at Shelburne, northwest of Mississauga; 132 megawatts.
-- Prince II Wind Power Project at Sault Ste. Marie; 90 megawatts.
-- Ripley Wind Power Project at Ripley, south of Kincardine; 76 megawatts.
-- Wolfe Island Wind Project at Kingston; 197.8 megawatts.
Wow that's really great to hear. Just for some more background information the project near Kincardine: The sites that the wind farms are going to be build on are located within 10Km's of the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant in Tiverton. All the farms will be built on farmers fields (I believe the land is being leased), in a line running parallel with the Lake Huron shoreline)
I really enjoy treehugger. It's good to have more popular sites like this to educate the public. Keep up the good work!
-Trevor
Until recently I lived in Kingston, so I've known about the Wolfe Island project for some time, but it's good to see it reported here to a global audience. My one concern though: isn't 8.64 cents/kWh almost twice the going retail rate in Ontario? How economically sustainable is this? What happened to all those claims that wind power is economically comparable to conventional electrical generation?
It seems as if the large developers have snapped up most of the first round of permits with the OPA. It will take more than large corporate cheque books to fix our load distrubution problems in the Province. I propose that every single community in Ontario, with a population of more than a thousand people; I propose that every single community ( where economically feasible ) have it's own wind turbine. This way 50% of supply can be corporate, and the other 50% can be CO-OP or community owned and operated. This in my opinion is the only real safeguard in price volatility. I should note that wind will only be our backup, we will still need nuclear in Ontario for 80% of our supply - that leaves us much to play with. Handing the contracts over to large corporations with head offices in Calgary will not in the long run serve the people of Ontario as well as if we learn to take care of business all by ourselves.
My opinion only, and not the opinion of my board.
Chris Kuntz
I made a video about the Shelburne Wind Turbine project today and thought you would be interested in checking it out.
http://seeasilverlining.blogspot.com/2006/02/round-and-round.html