By Carolyn Girard
Solar power, which is one of the few ways city-dwellers can produce their own green energy, is not cost effective if they currently rely on Ontario Hydro. Unfortunately, it’s cheaper to keep buying electricity from the province rather than installing solar panels and the equipment that goes with it.
Canadians need to move forward with affordable power alternatives, but resources are lacking. And with the provincial government’s talk of plans to close Ontario’s coal plants by 2014, time is ticking for widespread solutions that will motivate more of the population.
Companies such as the Ontario Power Authority will have to work harder at convincing Ontarians of the benefits reaped from solar and wind power generation.
The OPA thinks it can get more private homeowners to convert their homes into green power producing machines. It is offering money to private energy producers in exchange for kilowatt hours from solar and other renewable energy sources. As of November 2006, anyone can “sell” generated energy with this Standard Offer Program, but Ontarians aren’t exactly lining up for the opportunity.
It isn’t that Canadians don’t understand the potential of going green, it’s just that few homes are suited for producing enough power to be profitable.
The power generation authority should work a little harder to make alternate energy production affordable for the average homeowner.
Converting to green energy, let alone producing enough to power others, will take a lot more coaxing than a promise for reduced bills down the road.
Right now, only a select few of the people who produce energy have the capacity to participate in the Standard Offer Program. About a month after the program took root, less than one per cent of Ontarians showed interest let alone signed up.
The OPA, rather than dangling money incentives beyond the reach of many Ontarians, should take greater strides to subsidize solar panels for city dwellers and other viable solutions for residents in rural communities.
Waiving PST on solar panels, which the Liberal government has offered, is not enough of a boost for many Canadians to afford their cleaner energy source.
Farmers, small communities and businesses fit into OPA’s focus target group with this program, essentially because they are better disposed to actually produce enough power.
Rural Ontarians generally have the space that doesn’t exist for city dwellers to install wind turbines, which generate significantly more energy than a solar panel.
Also, costs for the right devices and the proper set up are just too high for many citizens to even consider investing. And city-dwellers, who can’t install powerful wind turbines for lack of space, are limited. Solar panels and heating systems currently can provide a homeowner about 25 per cent of their usual power consumption, so by investing, the owner of the system does reduce their overall energy bill, but wouldn’t be able to cut their costs completely, let alone gain extra dollars.
Green energy is simply not cost effective for most homeowners. One household in a rural community, for example, with a wind turbine and a solar panel, still needs an alternate source of power, such as natural gas or wood for heating to be completely self-sufficient and can cost upwards of $30,000 for parts and installation.
Good quality solar panels range in cost from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. That’s excluding the wiring, battery systems, inverters and other equipment required to convert the energy from the photovoltaic cells into electricity that can be used in homes.
The government-funded programs are too slow-moving, and focus more on energy reduction rather than increasing energy alternatives, such as the Government of Canada’s which expects to motivate 140,000 homeowners to revamp their homes and make them less electricity-guzzling.
Projects like Hydro One’s PowerSaver Business Incentive Program aim to help businesses also reduce their energy consumption. Campaigns encouraging the replacement of incandescent light bulbs with energy saver bulbs are keeping a little extra change in people’s pockets.
These might seem like encouraging, progressive tactics to reduce the average unit’s burden on the power lines, but it is not enough.
Ontario needs to switch energy sources, to improve the quality of the environment and to replace existing plants – so the province should be making it easier for Ontarians to do that.
The average citizen would be better off with more affordable means for producing their own power and in doing so, would reduce their dependence on the grid and on the province.