Quinte West City Council has formulated a plan to take advantage of provisions of Ontario’s Green Energy and Green Economy Act (Green Energy Act). If the Council moves forward with the plan, as many as five municipally-owned buildings will receive solar power retrofits that could collectively bring in close to $500K per year in revenue.
In 2009, Ontario enacted the Green Energy Act, which laid the framework for the province to offer North America’s first ever feed-in-tariff (FIT) program. The program has created a number of manufacturing, career, and training opportunities in the renewable energy sector by offering high rates for power generated from clean alternative sources such as solar, wind, and biomass. Renewable energy training programs such as Ontario Solar Academy’s five-day PV design and installation course prepare Ontarians for careers in these areas.
Renewable Energy Generates Revenue, Creates Careers
The plan for the new Quinte West solar projects replaces a previous strategy to lease rooftop space to private solar companies for grid-tied PV installations in exchange for a cut of the FIT profits. The new plan involves buying the solar panels outright and focuses on five buildings: the YMCA, Bayside Water Treatment Plant, Sidney and Trenton fire halls, and Duncan McDonald Arena. City councillors expect that after an initial $3.3 million investment, the municipality could earn $416,683 per year from the installations, and $8.3 million over the lives of the twenty-year FIT contracts. By comparison, the original plan to lease rooftops would have generated about $51,000 in annual revenue.
Quinte West’s new solar power plan is still in its earliest stages. The city still needs to issue a request for proposals and conduct inspections to determine each rooftop’s load-bearing capacity, but once it is ready to begin, graduates of the province’s renewable energy training programs will find no shortage of work in the area as they enter their new green careers.
Previous efforts to produce more renewable power in the Quinte area include plans for a rooftop solar installation on the Quinte Sports Centre in Belleville. The municipality shows the rest of the province the power of the FIT’s incentives and what concerted efforts on the parts of towns and cities can achieve towards a more sustainable future.
