One on One with George Smitherman
By Peter Mitchell
On May 14th, 2009 the Ontario Legislature passed the Green Energy Act. The Act, introduced to the Legislature on February 23, is designed to bring new investment to the province, create the next generation of green economy jobs and better protect the environment. As the legislation continues its journey to Ontario's Lieutenant Governor for Royal Assent, Business Niagara asked George Smitherman, the Deputy Premier and Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, what the Act will mean for local businesses.
How will the Green Energy Act affect the business community; particularly the manufacturing industry?
I think that the manufacturers have responded with excitement to the Green Energy Act. Because one of the things that it will do is it sent more renewable energy; but it also has a domestic content rule that will ensure more of an Ontario supply chain in any future renewable energy that takes place in Ontario. So there’s a lot of excitement amongst manufacturers and many people are looking to transition from their current manufacturing into things related to green energy.
What advice would you give to businesses in relation to the Green Energy Act? How can they best prepare?
I think the manufacturers have got to be out there, looking for opportunities, but we’ve already started to have some sessions including one last Friday: we had about 60 or 70 people there. So I think general awareness in terms of looking for manufacturing opportunities. For a range of other businesses there are a range of opportunities for them to become generators of electricity. As an example, anybody that’s got a flat rooftop is now given an incentive to take a look at whether they might do a solar array on their rooftop. We’ve got really attractive rates associated with the electricity that would be generated from that form. So we’re also trying to create, if you will, over time, mostly we had really big plants producing all the electrons that we need and we shipped them with wires. In the future, we’re trying to have more of a model where we have thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of micro-generators. So other businesses that are operating, doing whatever they do, might look for opportunities –to take rooftops as an example- and get some revenue out of it.
Does the Green Energy Act provide assistance to them?
Well it isn’t that it provides assistance so much at the front end, but what it does do is it provides a very good rate of compensation for the electricity that’s generated, and it does it with a 20 year contract, so it does it with a great deal of security associated with it. Even your roof at home, or the condominium building that I live in: they’re looking at how they can take a portion of their roof and install solar arrays.
In terms of investment, has any started coming in because of the Act?
I couldn’t speak to any in name to date; but that will not be the case for long. The Green Energy Act has put Ontario on the forefront of North American jurisdictions in terms of renewable energy. So the big companies around the world that have been manufacturing solar arrays and wind product are hovering about, and there’s no doubt whatsoever that we’ll land some of these businesses here in the province of Ontario.
