The National Post has carried a story July 7, 2010 indicating that a dim light is starting to glow in the mind of the McGuinty government that some of their Green Energy Act ideas were actually insane and profoundly damaging to Ontario.
Ontario government officials and agencies, together with the interest groups feeding off the Green Energy Act subsidies rarely miss an opportunity to declare the program a “success”. For Ontario consumers, success equals failure. As solar generation is added to the system, the rate impact will be great enough to choke off an equal or greater amount of load than the solar generators will actually serve applying conventional price elasticity estimates for electricity. This effect on load will drive rates even higher to cover the now largely fixed costs of the power system.
The interest groups feeding off the Green Energy Act subsidies are now ramping up a massive lobbying campaign to keep the subsidy spigot open a little longer. See for example the Facebook “Save the Micro-FIT Solar program in Ontario” and also this energy company: Green and Clean
A note from September 2009 anticipating a huge solar gold rush was posted here:
It is literally a feeding frenzy out here in rural Ontario, with wind and solar projects proposed everywhere. This is nothing short of wholesale destruction of our natural heritage and the pillaging of Ontario ratepayers. I am very disappointed in the Liberal MPPs who have stood by silently, while our province is being dragged down to ruination. At a certain point, no political career is worth sacrificing your personal integrity.
I haven’t seen a standard offer program yet that hasn’t collapsed under the weight of its success, and the regulators of the programs rarely can keep up with the creativity of the market in capitalizing on the programs to an extent much greater than the original sponsor ever contemplated.