Ontario and the Campaign for Advanced Renewable Tariffs
June 5, 2008
Ontario Launches Feed Law
On March 21, 2006, Premier Dalton McGuinty, and Ontario Minister of Energy Donna Cansfield announced the launch of Ontario's Standard Offer program in a press conference at Photowatt's assembly hall in Cambridge, Ontario. The announcement followed a two-year campaign for implementation of Advanced Renewable Tariffs (ARTs) or Electricity Feed Laws by the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association. Ontario's policy is being called the most progressive renewable energy policy in North America in two decades.
Below are a series of links to articles about OSEA's ARTs campaign, current discussion and commentary on Ontario's implementation of Standard Offer Contracts, and formal documents by the Ontario Power Authority and the Ontario Energy Board on the program.
In December 2004 the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association (OSEA)
was commissioned by the Ontario Ministry of Energy to propose a policy
for developing community-owned renewable power projects in the province.
OSEA submitted a detailed report on Standard Offer Contracts for the Ministry in January, 2005. Standard Offer Contracts
is the Ministry of Energy's preferred decription for Advanced Renewable
Tariffs that OSEA had proposed for use in Ontario in early 2004. The
report, which describes the difference between German, French, and
Spanish electricity feed laws and how they can be adapted to the North
American market, went through several iterations during the spring of
2005.
The report argues that "standard offer contracts", which fix a
long-term standard price for every kilowatt-hour of electricity
produced, would unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of Ontarians,
provide more renewably-generated electricity, more economic activity,
and more jobs in the manufacturing of wind turbines and solar panels
than any other means available to the province.
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