Canada Wind Industry Grows Amid Opposition Storms
Date: 03-Sep-07
Country: CANADA
Author: Jonathan Spicer
Although polls show widespread support for the renewable
energy source, a growing number of companies say that support
quickly fades among those who must live alongside wind farms,
leading to project delays and extra costs.
"There are many opportunities for small, anti-wind groups
to delay a project," said Debbie Boukydis, spokeswoman for
Enbridge Inc, which had to delay building what will be
the country's second-biggest wind farm by more than a year.
"There has been significant financial impacts from having
to wait a year," she said.
Delays are common around the world but acute in a country
that is less familiar with wind farms.
The industry is criticized as an expensive and inefficient
source of power, and opponents also argue that large-scale
projects can harm locals' health and are a blight on the
environment of the rural communities where they are usually
located.
Despite rising opposition, the tiny industry has recently
exploded in Canada, doubling in size in 2006 alone. Canada has
1,588 megawatts of installed wind capacity, accounting for
about 0.5 percent of its total electricity supply.
Given the country's vast coasts and prairies, it could
easily get 20 percent of its energy needs from wind alone, said
Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy
Association.
"Canada, quite possibly, has the best wind resources in the
world."
The proportion of electricity that Canada gets from wind is
slightly lower than that of the United States but far lower
than most European nations because it was "a little late
getting into the game," Hornung said in an interview.
Denmark, which leads the pack, gets about 20 percent of its
electricity from wind.
Germany and Spain aren't too far behind, and the European
Union adopted a resolution earlier this year to get 20 percent
of its energy from renewable sources -- wind, solar and
hydro-electric -- by 2020, in an effort to cut greenhouse gas
emissions.
In Canada, some 2,700 MW of new wind energy is contracted
to come on line in the next few years. But as the industry
grows, so too does opposition.
The 182 MW Enbridge project, in Ontario's Bruce County on
Lake Huron, northwest of Toronto, "will industrialize over
45,000 acres of rural countryside," its detractors, the
Windfarm Action Group, warned as the project waded through 14
months of appeals.
Enbridge, Canada's No. 2 pipeline company, slightly reduced
the size of the wind farm and was allowed to proceed with it in
July after a provincial tribunal overruled residents' concerned
about noise and unsightliness.
A nearby project by EPCOR Utilities Inc, however, has been
stalled since January, when the utility said it needed to
rethink plans for its 158 MW Kingsbridge II wind farm.
The utility, owned by the city of Edmonton, Alberta, and
the parent of EPCOR Power LP, ended agreements with
some suppliers, costing it as much as C$20 million (US$19
million) because of uncertainty about when it can begin
construction.
Neil Levine, an EPCOR spokesman, told Reuters there were
several delays, and that the project faced opposition from
"some people who are not in favor of the project."
Wind farms "are a new thing here in Ontario, and Canada,
and that requires a level of educating people about what wind
farms are, and what they aren't," Levine said.
(US$1=$1.05 Canadian)