December 16, 2010

Ontario energy plan will modernize system, encourage investment

VINCE VERSACE

staff writer

Ontario’s $87-billion, 20 year long-term energy plan will help modernize the province’s electricity system and sets the necessary framework to encourage innovation, say sector stakeholders.

“Even if it has to be updated, at least it gets people thinking about expenditures and investments that have to be made or we are going to be in trouble,” said Alex Lolua, director of government and public relations at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).

“We joke in our industry that if Thomas Edison came back, he would recognize everything. That is how archaic some of the distribution and transmission aspects of it are.”

Among the plan’s details are $14 billion earmarked for wind power, $12 billion for conservation programs, $9 billion for solar projects, $9 billion for transmission lines and $4.6 billion on new hydro-electric generation.

The plan also calls for $33 billion in combined government and private investments to build two new nuclear reactors at Darlington and refurbish 10 older units.

The Council of Ontario Construction Associations (COCA) applauds the plan, noting that as stimulus-related projects come to a close, the energy plan will produce much-needed construction activity.

“In particular with nuclear, some specific trades, particularly in the high-voltage electrical field, will see demands,” said Ian Cunningham, president of COCA.

“Once those trades head there, there could be shortages in other parts of the provinces but the plan overall is good news for the industry.”

The IBEW says it can provide the labour and expertise to help build new the electricity system infrastructure required in the plan. Thanks to its photovoltaic installation training and experience accumulated through various windmill installations, there is a properly trained labour pool available, said Lolua. However, there could be “some stress” due to aging demographics within the lineman trade needed to build new transmission line capacity.

“We would like to have some discussions with the government to look at the expected rollout of the renewal for (electricity) distribution expenditures — that would help us get ready,” said Lolua.

By 2018 the plan aims to generate 9,000 new megawatts (MW) of electricity from new hydroelectric sources and 10,700 MW from wind, solar and biomass projects.

A new 4,000 MW transmission line from Bruce to Milton, Ont. is also planned. The province says that for wind and solar grid construction, 95 per cent of the on-site construction labour should be done by Ontario residents.

COCA says a timeline for the energy plan would assist the industry in its preparation for anticipated project labour demands.

“We would like to see a schedule that will smooth out the demand, as well as it can, for as many trades as it can,” said Cunningham.

The province’s Green Energy Act, including its Feed in Tariff (FIT) program, has helped push recent growth in the electrical sector, state some sector insiders.

SunEdison, a subsidiary of MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc. recently announced that its affiliate, MEMC Singapore, has partnered with Newmarket-based Flextronics to produce solar photovoltaic panels at its facility. Production of the solar panels is expected to create 100 new jobs.

“This initiative not only satisfies the domestic content requirement (60 per cent) for SunEdison, but also signals a significant long-term investment in the Ontario solar market,” Carlos Domenech, president of SunEdison said in a statement.

A recently announced Windsor, Ont. wind tower plant is part of a $7 billion investment by Samsung and its partners in Ontario’s growing wind power sector.

The plant will generate 300 new full-time jobs and up to 400 construction and indirect service job. All the anticipated 200,000 tonnes of steel (valued at $140 million) to manufacture the towers will be from Ontario.

Also, Ontario’s first-ever wind blade manufacturing plant, being built by Siemens Canada, was recently announced for Tillsonburg, Ont.

This plant will bring as many as 300 permanent clean energy jobs and up to 600 additional construction and indirect service jobs to the region.

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