A report recently released by renewable energy developer Trillium Power Wind in Toronto highlights that Ontario’s energy regulators have so far received applications for offshore wind projects that combined could generate almost 21,000 megawatts of power.
Trillium has skin in the game with its own plan for a 710 megawatts wind farm offshore Lake Ontario.
Quoting the report the Globe and Mail writes that in Ontario offshore wind could generate more than C$250-billion ($243 billion) of economic activity over 15 years.
On shore or off shore, renewable energy companies like Ontario’s investor- friendly energy legislation. The Green Energy Act, voted into law last spring, includes a generous feed-in tariff system that sets the price the government will pay for wind or solar power. This allows developers to enter long-term power purchase agreements with provincial utilities knowing in advance what they would earn over the lifetime of the projects.
Specific to off shore power, the Green Energy Act has set a high price of 19 cents a kilowatt-hour, which is more than double the current retail rate, reports the Globe and Mail.
Trillium says the Great Lakes’ mix of high winds, relatively shallow water, and access to existing transmission lines make it an attractive area to develop offshore wind farms. Research firm Emerging Energy Research North America’s first offshore wind farm won’t be built until 2012.
The U.S. lags behind in developing its offshore potential. Emblematic of that is Cape Wind, a Boston-based developer, which for the past seven years plan for a 420 megawatts offshore wind power project off shore Cape Cod has been snarled by opposition from local residents and bureaucratic red tape.
Until a few weeks ago the project, after numerous setbacks, seemed on track to start negotiating terms of a crucial long-term power purchase agreement with local utilities. Yet, that’s been put on hold with the recent decision by the National Register of Historic Places to grant the Nantucket Sound eligibility to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The decision could lead to more delays as it ensures that significant archeological research are undertaken as part of this already long permitting process.
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