Province wants 40% of N.S. power to be green by 2020
Over the next decade, Nova Scotia will quadruple the amount of renewable energy produced from wind, tides, biomass and imported sources, creating about $1.5 billion in investments, Premier Darrell Dexter said Friday.
Dexter unveiled plans to increase the amount of electricity generated from renewable sources to 40 per cent by 2020 at a news conference on top of Dalhousie Mountain, about 25 kilometres west of New Glasgow. It’s the site of the province’s largest wind farm, which started producing power from its 30 turbines last year.
The new blueprint for electricity generation moves Nova Scotia away from power generated from coal and expensive imported oil toward greener sources.
Nova Scotia Power now produces 10 to 12 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources and supplies power to 470,000 homes and businesses in the province.
"We are a province and an economy which is currently so heavily dependent on fossil fuels that if we do not make the conversion, then we run the real risk that as we see carbon-based tariffs come into place in other parts of the world, that our economy will become uncompetitive, that (the) ordinary homeowner will see rapidly escalating prices of electricity," Dexter told reporters after the news conference.
The premier called the new targets "the most aggressive anywhere" but admitted that Nova Scotia can’t be compared to Quebec or Manitoba, where 70 to 80 per cent of their electricity is already produced from huge hydroelectric projects.
In Nova Scotia, 90 per cent of electricity is produced with fossil fuels at power plants, and going green will mean higher power bills.
Last summer, the government announced that 25 per cent of electricity would come from renewable sources by 2015. To reach this goal, Nova Scotians will pay $10 to $20 a year more for electricity, Dexter said.
"I think that nobody is happy with a power increase, but the reality is that the price of electricity over the last 10 years has gone up 37 per cent because we are on fossil fuels," he said. "So, in the long term, this will mean more stable pricing; it will actually put the energy costs in this province in a more affordable frame and more stable for the long term."
For these plans to become reality, a new power line will have to be built, government officials say.
"We are committed to strengthening the grid in the region," Dexter said. "If we are going to truly unlock the economic potential of the Atlantic region, it will be heavily dependent on having an appropriate grid system."
The president of RMSenergy, the Pictou County company that owns the Dalhousie Mountain wind farm, said it took three years for the 51-megawatt wind project to become a reality, and the new targets and initiatives will give wind developers more confidence to keep building.
"I definitely see that it offers the support and the confidence to go ahead," said Reuben Burge, president of the privately owned company. "We know we are going in that direction and we have to meet it, and those are huge targets."
Under the new plan, 200 megawatts of the renewable power will be split evenly between Nova Scotia Power and large independent power producers.
Nova Scotia Power, the province’s largest utility, believes the new targets can be met.
"I think we can get there," said Robin MacAdam, the company’s vice-president of sustainability, who was one of about 100 people on hand for the announcement. "I think they are stretch targets but they are achievable."
The province also took a "cautious approach" to burning wood waste for electricity as part of the renewable energy targets. It’s proposing a yearly cap of 500,000 tonnes of biomass to generate electricity and 150,000 tonnes to co-fire power plants.
The government says it will review the use of biomass for post-2015 use.
The province will also set up a fixed price or feed-in tariffs for the 100 megawatts that will be generated by community-based producers or smaller developments. A new renewable electricity administrator will oversee competition among independents to ensure fairness and best value for customers, Dexter said.
Many of these initiatives come from recommendations made in a report by Dalhousie University professors David Wheeler and Michelle Adams, whom the government hired last year to review options available to the province for meeting its goal of generating 25 per cent of its electricity through renewable sources by 2015.
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