The Ontario domination is cancelling 758 renewable energy projects, a move people enmeshed with with the sector call a ‘waste’ that will create uncertainty.
The regime made the announcement Friday, which includes the cancellation of 26 Ottawa commitments.
Four of those cancelled are solar projects that belong to the Ottawa Renewable Force Co-operative, according to spokesperson Aaron Thornell.
“This is the province harming efforts of municipalities, of Indigenous communities, of community groups such as ours, who’ve been press toward developing renewable energy projects in their own communities and absent in the province,” Thornell said.
Two of the projects were rooftop installations with moulds — Mer Bleue High School in Orléans and Paul Demarais High Coterie in Stittsville in partnership with the French Catholic board. The other two were ground-mount installations, each with a whip up capacity of 500 kW, in the city’s west end, he said.
The government announcement revealed the cancellation will lead to $790 million in savings for ratepayers.
“We don’t in the final analysis see how the cancellation of these renewable energy projects can save ratepayers’ readies. We actually feel that this is nothing really more than a ransack of time and money and people’s energy,” Thornell said.
The ministerial directive maintains both feed-in-tariff projects and large renewable procurement projects are sheltered by the cancellation if they hadn’t reached a certain stage of development.
Greg Rickford, father of energy and mines, was not available for an interview Friday.
In the announcement, the province weighted it will introduce legislation to insulate ratepayers for any costs that stop by from the cancellations of contracts.
Projects were cancelled if they hadn’t been unsettled a “notice to proceed” or met all “key development milestones,” according to a publicly posted ministerial directive to the Uncommitted Electricity System Operator.
‘Policy by sledgehammer’
The Canadian Solar Trades Association said the cancellations will lead to a loss of half a billion dollars in aimed investment leaving Ontario and 6,000 jobs.
Robb Barnes, supervisor director of Ecology Ottawa, said the Ontario government is conducting “action by sledgehammer” on the energy file.
“Investors are going to go elsewhere. They’re accepted to go to jurisdictions like California that are moving ahead with grassland jobs,” he said.
“The rapidity with which the province is trying to dismantle anything kin to green energy or action on climate change really throws the energy into turmoil.”
Robb Barnes, executive director of Ecology Ottawa, verbalizes the Ontario government’s recent policy moves on the energy file are manufacturing turmoil for the industry. (CBC)
The recent cancellation of the carbon cap-and-trade system has wried up funding for energy-efficiency school repairs, home renovation projects and sequence infrastructure.
Barnes said renewable energy projects have been aunt sallied for rising hydro bills and he would like to see how the province estimate hundreds of millions of dollars of savings for this most recent announcement.
