The Hindu Business Line : Ontario unveils ‘Go Green’ drive

The Province, comprising Toronto, the most populous city (5.5 million) and Canada’s capital Ottawa, has come up with a slew of long-term initiatives that it hopes will get it on to the fast track to achieve a good quality of life for its 12.9 million people.

The Green Energy Act (GEA), the $500-million innovation loan programme for industry, under the Advanced Manufacturing Investment Strategy; a $250-million Emerging Technologies Fund and creating Green Office Space, and a $205-million venture fund are the key ingredients of this intent.

Green Energy Act

The enactment of GEA as law since June 2009 is expected to create up to 50,000 new jobs and attract billions of dollars of investments in future, explained Sandra Pupatello, Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

It would create an attractive feed-in tariff regime, a pricing system to guarantee lucrative rates for renewable energy and establish a right to connect with approval process for renewable energy projects, she told a global media team recently.

A novel push is being attempted through schools to promote ‘Green initiatives.’ Incidentally ‘David Suzuki School’, a ‘green school’ is being built and the Government is targeting green space around Toronto, Pupatello said.

Green Venture Funds

The $205-million Ontario Venture Capital Fund (OVCF), managed by TD Capital Private Equity Investors, is a joint initiative between the provincial Government and leading institutional investors to invest primarily in Ontario-based and Ontario-focused venture capital and growth equity funds.

It also follows a recent announcement by Ontario to create a new $250-million Emerging Technologies Fund, to help drive private sector investment into new Ontario technology start-ups. It also supports research and innovation, which is a prime focus of the almost $4-billion Innovation Agenda.

“We recently invested $2.7 million in a venture to fabricate rooftop wind turbines for homes. Accordingly, the company Windtronics will push domestic applications of wind energy and it will create at least 200 jobs,” Pupatello said.

Climate Change action

In a major step towards meeting climate change targets, Ontario has decided to permanently shut down four coal fired power units — Units 3 and 4 at Nanticoke and Units 1 and 2 at Lambton, with a combined capacity of 1,910 MW, by late 2010. This step is towards meeting Ontario’s commitment to fight climate change — the elimination of coal-fired generation by the end of 2014.

Though there are no coal fuelled units in Toronto, the Ontario Power Generation (OPG) currently has 6,315 MW of coal-fired capacity provided by 15 units that operate at four plants across Ontario.

These four coal plant closings are the first in a ten-step transition to Ontario generating all of its electricity from green energy. The OPG is assessing its remaining coal power plants to see if they can be feasibly switched to using fuel sources such as biomass. Ontario has said the closure of the coal plants has resulted in a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions equal to the annual emissions of 7 million automobiles.

A ‘Clean Technology Mission’, led by the Canadian Prime Minister will visit India during December 6-11, 2009. A total of 30 companies are accompanying the delegation, which will visit Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad.

“We look forward to engagement with India in the fields of solar, wind and also nuclear energy, where there is tremendous scope in the long term,” the Minister said.