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Apr 20, 2011CanGEA Chair Comments on Canadian Renewable Energy Market Overview
Alison Thompson, CanGEA chair, comments on the Canadian renewable energy market in an interview by David Wagman at Renewable Energy World North America magazine.
April 19, 2011 - One renewable technology that has yet to gain any foothold is geothermal energy. The country shares the same continental shelf and geology as the U.S., Mexico and Latin America and counts some 200 hot springs that have yet to be developed. But the federal government and the provinces both have so far failed to put in place policies and regulations to encourage geothermal development, said Alison Thompson, chair of the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association. She acknowledged the group's goal to have 5,000 MW of installed capacity by 2015 is unrealistic and said proponents hope instead that a similar amount of geothermal resource can be defined by that date. "We are quite comfortable with that number given production rates in the U.S. and Mexico," she said.
Educating policymakers remains a priority for Association members, she said. The Ontario FIT program includes every renewable energy resource available in the province but geothermal. And out of the C$1.3 billion allocated at the federal level as a production incentive, none was earmarked for geothermal. Efforts are underway to create permit and lease programs at the provincial levels and to have geothermal included in future feed-in tariff programs. One recent success came last December when the federal government offered tax breaks to resource exploration firms that drill for geothermal.
Unlike other renewable energy resources, Thompson said geothermal energy can be cost-competitive without extensive subsidies, especially in remote parts of the county where communities often rely on diesel for electric power generation. In portions of the Northwest Territories, communities can spend hundreds of dollars per megawatt-hour for electricity. "Geothermal comes in far below that," she said. In Alberta, which offers an incentive of $15 a tonne to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, geothermal could be competitive. And in hydro-rich British Columbia, which offers essentially no incentive, geothermal could be competitive on the grid, however, access to leases and permit remain major barriers.
Full article at Renewable Energy World
