ecoENERGY Renewable Initiative: Increasing Canada's Renewable ecoENERGY Supplies

July 5, 2007

Canada is blessed with abundant conventional and renewable energy sources. Conventional energy sources will continue to be a large part of Canada's energy mix, but the share of clean renewable energy will continue to grow.

Renewable energy technologies for generating electricity and for heating and cooling are not widely used in Canada. These technologies are generally less familiar to Canadians and more expensive than traditional energy sources. Through its ecoENERGY Renewable initiative, the Government of Canada is investing more than $1.5 billion in two initiatives to make clean, low-impact renewable energy available to more Canadians and less expensive.

ecoENERGY for Renewable Power

Today, about four percent of Canada's electricity supply comes from emerging renewable sources such as wind, biomass and small hydro. The investment of $1.48 billion in ecoENERGY for Renewable Power will boost Canada's supply of renewable electricity by about 4,000 megawatts.

To help close the price gap between low-impact renewable and traditional electricity sources, the program provides an incentive of one cent per kilowatt hour for up to ten years. To be eligible, projects that generate clean electricity from renewable sources must be constructed over the next four years. These sources can include wind, low-impact hydro, biomass, solar photovoltaic, geothermal, tidal and wave technologies, all of which generate few or zero harmful emissions.

ecoENERGY for Renewable Power is anticipated to add enough clean renewable electricity to power about one million homes. It will also result in reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are equivalent to taking one million cars off the road.

ecoENERGY for Renewable Heat

About 23 percent of Canada's secondary energy supply goes to water heating, and space heating and cooling in residential, commercial and institutional buildings. Renewable-energy systems, such as solar air and water heating, and geothermal technologies such as ground-source heat pumps, generally are unfamiliar to consumers and more expensive than traditional sources.

An investment of $36 million in the Government of Canada's ecoENERGY for Renewable Heat will increase the use of clean renewable technologies through a mix of incentives and support for the development of industry capacity. An incentive will be offered to purchasers of solar heating systems in the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors. The incentive will be set at 2007-09-05 other costs of a qualifying system.

In addition, in partnership with energy utilities, energy service companies, community groups and other interested partners, projects will be undertaken to explore how to increase the market for residential solar hot-water systems. This is expected to result in the installation of solar hot-water systems into several thousand homes across the country.

ecoENERGY for Renewable Heat will also help to establish solar and geothermal technologies in the marketplace by supporting the development of standards and certification, promoting the adoption of these technologies in building codes (federal, provincial and municipal) and training energy designers, technicians and installers.

These Government of Canada investments in low-impact renewable electricity and energy initiatives are in addition to other provincial and territorial programs promoting the adoption of renewable energy technologies. Details about these programs are available on the Government of Canada's ecoAction Web site at www.ecoaction.gc.ca.