When the town of St. Lawrence held its groundbreaking ceremony on July 26 for a 27-megawatt (MW) wind project, it marked the start of construction of the first commercial wind farm in Newfoundland and Labrador.
"A lot of winners in all of this," says Mayor Wayde Rowsell, "from green energy to revenue generation for the province and community, employment generation, and the spin-off in tourism opportunities."
The St. Lawrence farm is one of over 25 new wind energy projects, total capacity 2,767 MW, that have either been signed or are under construction across Canada.
Since building its first site in 1993—the Haeckel Hill 0.15 MW turbine near Whitehorse in the Yukon—Canada now has 77 wind farm sites. The largest is Ontario's 189 MW Prince Project, with 126 turbines, on the shores of Lake Superior near Sault Ste. Marie. Canada's current installed capacity of 1,588 MW is enough to power 480,000 homes.
Globally, wind energy has experienced "phenomenal growth," averaging 25–30 per cent over the last decade, says Robert Hornung, President of the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA). CanWEA is a non-profit trade association representing over 300 members in the wind industry.
And this trend is expected to continue. By the end of 2006 there were 74,000 MW of installed wind capacity throughout the world. "It's expected by 2010 we'll be at 136,000 MW," says Hornung.
However, building wind farms requires some serious money. It costs $20 - $25 million for a 10 MW project, so like the oil sands, hydroelectric, and other industries, the role of policy to facilitate these projects is key, says Hornung.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that wind is widely recognized as a renewable resource, and is environmentally friendly in terms of climate change and air pollution, concerns have been raised around such issues as cost, reliability, noise, impact on bird populations, safety, and aesthetics.
'Untapped Potential'
Hornung, who emphasizes the need for "fact-based discussions" on these issues, notes that wind energy currently provides only 0.6 per cent of Canada's total electricity demand. However, "Canada has tremendous wind resources in all parts of the country, and we've got a lot of untapped potential."
CanWEA has set an objective of 10,000 MW of installed and contracted capacity by 2010, and the provinces have set targets that add up to 15,000 MW by 2015. That will represent about 4 per cent of Canada's electricity, the same as the amount provided by natural gas in Canada today, according to Hornung.
Still, he says Canada lags behind other countries in wind performance considering the percentage of electricity provided. Denmark already gets about 20 per cent of its electricity from wind, Spain about 9 per cent, Germany 6–7 per cent.
CanWEA estimates that, with 50,000 MW of installed capacity, Canada can potentially achieve 20 per cent of its electricity needs from wind energy. Notably, Prince Edward Island gets about 15 per cent of its electricity from wind today, and Saskatchewan 5 per cent.
Cost and Variability
Thomas Adams, Executive Director of Energy Probe, a consumer and environmental public interest group, lists three major hurdles to be overcome before wind power can become "a real, significant contributor to our electricity requirements:" output variability and reliability, forecasting, and cost reduction, which has stalled in recent years.
The substantial price increase of steel and other materials has made all power generation more expensive, Hornung acknowledges. As for wind power, rising demand globally has led to a shortage of wind turbines, driving up the cost. He expects supply and demand to be back in balance within two to three years.
"What makes the industry optimistic," he says, "is general expectation that the cost of wind will continue to go down, with ongoing technological evolutions, whereas you can say with a fairly high level of certainty that the costs of almost all the conventional sources are going to go up."
Paul Gipe of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association agrees. "The ready availability of fossil fuel is coming into question," he says, and their cost, particularly in the case of natural gas, is going to be highly volatile.
Measures are being taken to address reliability and variability concerns. Adams notes that the Alberta Electric System Operator is working with the wind industry to study alternative forecasting methodologies. Moreover, strategically placing wind turbines and farms can help smooth out the problem of intermittency.
But wind will never power Canada on its own, says Hornug. "It needs to be partnered with other resources."
A good complement is hydro. When there's a strong wind, utilities can stop the water running through the dam, in essence storing energy; when there is less wind, the water can be allowed to run through. This type of balancing is especially helpful in winter when wind energy production peaks while reservoirs remain unfilled.
While turbines can be shut down or geared back when producing too much, Adams and Hornung spoke of potential storage technologies such as large batteries and pumps that can store the excess energy. For now, Hornung suggests improving integration of wind and other generating plants to give a system operator more options in balancing variability from different energy sources.
Lisa Pearson, spokesperson for the Independent Electricity Systems Operator, the body responsible for reliability standards for Ontario's power system, says the average capacity factor (CF)—actual output versus output if operated at full capacity—for Ontario's wind farms in 2006 was approximately 25 per cent. The highest reported figure is 41 per cent, recorded in March 2007.
Hornung explained that most Canadian wind farms operate at 30–35 per cent. For wind in general, over 40 per cent is considered good. Wind turbines in Germany, for example, have CFs in the range 20–25 per cent.
Putting Concerns in Context
Adams says ongoing research is identifying the vulnerability of bird and bat populations, a key question during environmental assessments on the location of wind farms. Some wind farm proposals have already been rejected due to bird population concerns, such as on Pelee Island in the Lake Erie region. CanWEA and the Canadian Wildlife Service are working with Bird Studies Canada to build a database of bird data that will help improve wind farm siting.
As for noise, Hornung says sound from wind turbines is regulated as it is for other industrial facilities. Compliance will ensure that "wind is a good neighbour." He cites a U.K. study which found that the number of noise complaints with respect to wind was in the order of 1,000 to 10,000 times less than that associated with other industrial facilities.
In terms of safety, such as blades breaking or ice being thrown into the air, he says wind turbine towers adhere to building codes and studies show that those risks are rare.
Aesthetics is the biggest challenge, says Hornung, because it is subjective. "If someone says 'I just don't like the look of it, and it destroys that view for me,' I'm not going to be able to change their mind too much." However, there are now computer applications that can help people get a sense of what the visual impact will be.
"[Wind developers] want to ensure that any concerns raised are treated respectfully," says Hornung. "We also want to make sure that any discussions about these issues are fact-based and not based on misinformation or lack of information."
Role of Policy
The federal government announced the $1.48 billion ecoEnergy Renewable Power program in January to support the deployment of 4,000 MW of new renewable energy between 2007 and 2010. It covers sources such as wind, biomass, low-impact hydro, geothermal, solar photovoltaic, and ocean energy.
"To their credit, governments are slowly putting in place policy frameworks that will help facilitate our efforts to capture [wind's] potential," Hornung says.
Last month, Kettles Hill Wind Energy became the first company awarded funding—$16.5 million—under this program. It is completing a 63 MW wind farm near Pincher Creek, Alberta. Hornung says this program is an important signal to the provincial governments to encourage renewable energy through their own policies.
Most provinces have created demand for renewables by either legislating standards or by setting targets and then putting out request for proposals (RFPs) to meet those targets.
However, the RFP process makes it harder for smaller projects lacking the economy of scale to compete against large projects. That's why a new program in Ontario, the Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program, is so significant, says Gipe.
Launched last November, it allows a broader range of people, such as cooperatives, farmers, and small businesses to build renewable projects, limited to a 10 MW capacity. They can supply the power they produce to Ontario's system and be paid a stable price under a 20-year contract with their local electricity distributor.
By the end of July, Ontario had already signed 104 contracts under this program. Of the total 528 MW signed, wind power represents nearly 388 MW.
Future Prospects
Hornung predicts Canada's electricity system will become more diverse in the future, with renewables playing an increasingly larger role. Despite high front-end costs, wind power requires no fossil fuels and costs almost nothing to produce, he says. And, like other renewables, it can provide economic benefits to rural communities through investment, tourism, job creation, lease income for landowners, and tax revenue for municipal governments.
St. Lawrence's Mayor Rowsell agrees. His town's involvement with the project began six years ago. As a result of public meetings, collaborating with community groups, and visibility of the wind development company in St. Lawrence, community concerns were largely dispelled, he says. And the 20-year power purchase agreement "is an excellent deal for both [the town and the company.]"
While Adams remains "cautiously optimistic" and urges more research and development before further major investments in building wind farms, Gipe says that in the face of climate change and dwindling fossil fuels, "we have no time to waste and must take action now."
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