Ontario's Smart Grid and the New Green Economy

As I have blogged on several occasions (here, here and here) Ontario is in several ways leading the charge in the green power revolution in North America. 

It started in 2004 when as part of Ontario's Smart Metering Initiative, the Ontario Government legislated that all electric power customers  in the province have smart meters by 2010. 

Secondly in 2007, the Ontario Government committed to phasing out coal generation in the province by 2014.  Although Coal accounts for only about 19 % of power generation in Ontario, for a province of over 10 million people, that is a lot of power generation to have to find an alternative for.  For example, Ontario Power Generation's Nanticoke plant is the largest coal fired power plant in North America. 

Then early in 2009 the Green Energy and Green Economy Act was passed by the Ontario legislature.  It mandated distributed generation (DG) enablement to ensure open access to the electric power grid to all residents of Ontario, which means that if I put photovoltaic cells on my roof, the local power company is required to connect me to the grid.  Secondly it made it financially attractive for you and me to provide power to the grid by establishing a feed-in-tariff program, which means that if I have photovoltaic cells on my roof or a wind turbine in my backyard, it is financially attractive for me to sell the power to my local power company rather than use it myself.

Ontario’s roll-out of smart meters together with time-of-use electric power rates rates is the largest in the world.  The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) began a smart meter/time-of-use rates pilot project in 2006. As of May of last year, more than 2.4 million smart meters had been installed and by the end of 2010 smart meters will have been installed in all homes and small businesses.  By June 2011, an estimated 3.6 million customers will be buying their power using time-of-use rates.  I blogged recently about Ontario's $2.3 billion expansion of the electric power transmission network across the province (Just to put this in perspective, Ontario is Canada's second largest province, but it is twice as big as Texas.)

The name of the Green Energy and Green Economy Act suggests that this is not just about green energy, but has a broader objective.  As Southern Ontario's traditional petroleum-based automobile industry declines, the Ontario government intends to create the foundation for a new green economy.  In this week's New Yorker magazine, you'll find a full page ad paid for by the government of Ontario which basically says that if you are a green economy entrepreneur or business, you should consider moving to Ontario because of R&D tax credits,educated workers, and billions in government investment.  The Premier of the province has recently signed a deal with Samsung as part of which Samsung would spend $7 billion on green energy projects across Ontario.  Ontario is doing what Germany, China, California, and other jurisdictions are doing, realizing that the world economy is changing dramatically, and creating a local market and putting in place government policies to enable Ontario to be competitive in the new green economy.