As a follow up to my post about the excessive pollution in the Sarnia-Lambton area of Southwestern Ontario last week, I wanted to highlight what the Ontario government is doing in the area of alternative energy sources.
The Ontario government has given approval for the largest solar farm in North America and one of the largest in the world. Once complete in 2010 it will produce 40 megawatts of power which is enough to power between 10,000 and 15,000 homes on sunny days.
The current world record-holder is the 12-megawatt Erlasee solar park in Germany, though another 40-megawatt park is under construction in the same region. The largest U.S. project so far announced is a 15-megawatt solar system to be built at an air force base in Nevada and last fall, the Australian government announced funding for a proposed 154-megawatt solar power plant to be built in Victoria state and expected to be fully operational by 2013.
The Ontario Power Authority has agreed to purchase the electricity under a 20-year contract that will see the clean power go into the provincial grid. But compared to coal, nuclear power, even wind, solar's squeaky-clean image comes at a high price. OptiSolar is selling the electricity to the province under its new standard offer program, which pays a premium for electricity that comes from small-scale renewable projects. In the case of wind, it's 11 cents per kilowatt-hour. Solar fetches 42 cents per kilowatt hour, nearly four times as much.
The premium may seem high but is justified given the environmental benefits. Solar power is clean power with no harmful emissions created during the production unlike coal or nuclear power. Publicly stated costs of nuclear power and fossil fuels never reflect environmental costs, health impacts, and industry subsidies.
This project represents only a small part of Ontario's total energy consumption. Last year, Ontario had a peak demand of 27,000 megawatts but it is a start in the right direction.
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