Canada has produced an atlas that’s full of wind — which is just fine with an industry looking for government backing to boost wind-generated power by 20-fold over the next five years.
The field is also starting to attract participation by fossil fuel-based companies in Canada as they look to spruce up their image and position themselves for a role in renewable energy.
The Canadian Wind Energy Atlas is a comprehensive database of high-resolution wind statistics, making Canada the first large-area country in the world to aid in identifying potentially productive wind-farm sites by reducing the need for extensive, costly field studies.
“It’s nice to have wind turbines, but you need to know where to put them,” said federal Environment Minister Stéphane Dion.
He described the atlas as a “way to see the wind.”
For Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association — CanWEA for short — the information will conclusively show that “the magnitude of Canada’s wind resource potential is superior” to that of European countries that are far ahead of Canada in exploiting a renewable, clean energy source.
“Wind is becoming a major economic force,” he said.
Currently, Canada has 440 megawatts of installed capacity, concentrated in Alberta and Quebec, supplying about 0.4 percent of the country’s electricity, or the equivalent of 100,000 average homes, compared with Denmark at 15 percent and Germany and Spain, each at 5 percent.
Association believes wind could provide 20% of Canada’s electricity
Hornung’s association believes Canada could easily turn the wind into 10,000 megawatts of power by 2010, meeting 20 percent of its needs.
Further bolstering the initiative, Natural Resources Minister John Efford allocated almost C$25 million to the newly commissioned Summerview Wind Farm near Pincher Creek, in the windswept Crowsnest Pass region of southwestern Alberta.
That is part of the government’s Wind Power Production Initiative, which will distribute C$260 million over 15 years to promote the sector’s development — a figure Horning wants to see quadrupled.
Summerview is operated by Vision Quest Windelectric, a unit of Calgary-based energy utility TransAlta. When it bought Vision Quest two years ago for C$37 million, TransAlta said it planned to spend as much as C$2 billion over 10 years to develop wind energy, marking the largest entry into the field by a private sector power generator.
The purchase, said President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Snyder, would be a “cornerstone for our renewable energy strategy,” with Vision Quest having pinpointed about 1,000 megawatts of growth opportunities.
“We think that as this business grows in scale and as the capital costs come down per unit, that it will be a viable, economic source of generation,” said Snyder.
“There are limits to what we can do, but this is certainly one way to move that agenda forward.”
Canada has 32 installed turbines
According to CanWEA, Canada has 32 installed turbines in six of the 10 provinces and one of the three territories.
Alberta is the clear front-runner, with more than a decade of experience and now operating 13 projects with combined output of 269 megawatts, followed by Quebec with five projects and 113 megawatts.
CanWEA said that wind power has increased by more than 30 percent a year this century and now likely exceeds 40,000 megawatts worldwide, on its way to 95,000 megawatts by 2008 and 194,000 megawatts by 2013.
The association claims the fast-evolving wind energy technology has achieved 98 percent reliability with turbines, lowering generation costs to 6 cents-12 cents per kilowatt/hour from 30 cents less than a decade ago.
Natural Resources Canada reported on Oct. 19 that the price of wind energy dropped to 5 cents-10 cents per kilowatt hour from 20 cents in 1983.
Major reviews by the U.S. Department of Energy and the British government project that the cost of wind energy will range from 3.4 cents-5.5 cents (US) by 2020.
Investment may come under Kyoto Protocol
Further lifting the hopes of wind power advocates is the possibility they will receive investment from energy companies under the Kyoto Protocol, which Canada is still committed to implementing.
The accord will force utilities to lower their output of greenhouse gases from conventional power plants, while allowing them to turn an investment in wind power into a green credit to reduce their Kyoto obligations.
Dion has given a strong hint of his leanings, arguing that Canada does not rank well with other rich, Western countries on pollution reduction, although independent research organizations suggest one of the obstacles is very cheap power available compared with Europe.
Wind meets 5 percent of needs on Prince Edward Island
Wayne MacQuarrie, manager of PEI Energy on Prince Edward Island, said that if it costs C$2 million to retrofit a conventional plant compared with spending C$10,000 for the same result on a wind project “then it’s worthwhile” examining.
On Prince Edward Island, by far Canada’s smallest province with a population of just 140,000, wind power now meets 5 percent of needs and could cover 100 percent at an estimated cost of C$300 million by harnessing the gales that pound the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Provincially owned Nova Scotia Power approved 17 renewable energy projects in late October — 15 of them wind-driven — that will add 28 megawatts to the province’s grid and put out a call for large-scale ventures that will add another 30 megawatts.
The Nova Scotia government has just passed legislation that requires a minimum portion of all new electricity generation to come from renewable sources.
However, J.D. Irving Ltd., the New Brunswick industrial conglomerate, was forced to scale down a proposed wind farm for the island because of concerns about noise and the appearance of wind towers.
In British Columbia, the first wind energy development got environmental approval in early November.
The C$100 million Holberg Wind Energy proposed for the northern tip of Vancouver Island could be providing enough power to provincially owned B.C. Hydro to serve 17,000 households over 20 years, starting in 2006. Partners in the venture are Stothert, a Vancouver-based company, and Global Renewable Energy Partners, a Danish-U.S. company.
Sea Breeze Energy has previously received approval for a wind farm in the same area, but has not been able to line up customers or access to transmission lines.
Pace quickening
On a grander scale, the pace has quickened elsewhere in Canada this year.
In early October, the Quebec government approved construction of eight wind farms capable of supplying 1,000 megawatts of power to 1 million homes — by far the biggest leap the industry has made — and plans another 1,000 megawatts before 2010.
Provincially owned Hydro-Quebec, by far Canada’s biggest utility with annual revenue of C$11.5 billion, which plans to spend C$50 billion on new generating capacity between 2005 and 2020, is also starting to pay more than lip service to wind power and energy conservation.
It has just announced C$2 billion in wind power projects to be built and operated by the private sector — a small, but significant step away from Hydro-Quebec’s strategy of relying on hydroelectricity for 95 percent of its production, posing a serious challenge for the utility, which faced record low levels in its reservoirs last year before it was rescued by a rainy summer this year.
Ontario has also paid heed to the shifting winds by putting out a call for 300 megawatts of wind-generated power and that could multiply five-fold within a few years.
Among the proposals submitted to Ontario is one from Suncor Energy, Enbridge (two of Canada’s largest energy firms) and Spanish-owned EHN Wind Power Canada, which plan a 75-megawatt project.
The same partners own and operate a 30-megawatt plant in southwestern Alberta, while Suncor and Enbridge operate an 11.2 megawatt facility in Saskatchewan.
“It will be a race between Ontario and Quebec as to who overtakes Alberta first,” predicted John Keating, chief executive officer of Canadian Hydro Developers, which generate 50 megawatts from three Alberta farms.
Some companies taking negative view
Many companies, such as Suncor and Enbridge that have largely made their money from conventional oil and natural gas, are now covering their bets by taking a foothold in the wind sector. But it’s not a headlong rush.
Calgary-based utility ATCO pulled out of plans for one of Canada’s largest wind farms in September, by withdrawing from a joint-venture with government-owned SaskPower to build a C$250 million farm in Saskatchewan.
ATCO Chief Executive Officer Nancy Southern said the company would put its priority instead on extending gas and power line infrastructure to keep pace with Alberta’s explosive growth, although it would keep a commitment to wind and green power.
SaskPower hopes to keep the project alive, but did not express hope that it could find a new partner.
One of Europe’s largest power companies, E.ON AG, the continent’s second-largest electricity generator, added to a negative view by issuing a report in October that concluded wind power is a costly, unreliable source of power.
E.ON, a substantial investor in wind power and the owner of half of Germany’s wind farms, urged governments and the industry to keep a tight hold on their expectations.
“Due to their limited availability, wind power plants can not replace the usual power station capacities to a significant degree, but can basically only save on fuel,” E.ON said.
Canadian Hydro says concerns not new
But Canadian Hydro’s Keating said the concerns are not new and don’t trouble him, calling on the government to extend its financial incentives for wind farms — about 1 cent per kilowatt/hour — to the full range of renewable and clean-power sources.
“If it comes with zero emissions, do you really care it came from wind or hydro, biomass or the sun? You shouldn’t care, you should just let the market choose,” he said.
Suncor Chief Executive Officer Rick George said in an October speech that the Canadian government’s Wind Power Production Incentive — which offers as much as 1.2 cents per kilowatt hour for new wind energy developments — is one example of the kind of support the renewables sector needs to get on its feet.
But the David Suzuki Foundation, in a report released Oct. 23, said the Ontario government is losing out on a chance to create thousands of new jobs and pump billions of dollars into the economy because it is slow to support renewable energy.
The report said Ontario, with a population approaching 10 million, could install 8,000 megawatts of wind power by 2012, generating C$14 billion in economic benefits and 5,000 direct jobs.
“If you think in terms of growth sectors, wind and solar are huge growth areas comparable to the growth of the electronics industry,” said scientist David Suzuki.
Governments should also recognize the bigger picture and accept that policies promoting renewable energy can improve overall health and the environment as well as give a lift to the economy, he said.
