Wind Power Lobbies For Northern Exposure

The program would also give a boost to the small and medium-sized turbine manufacturing business in Canada, an established industry that now exports most of its products. Boosting the domestic market through incentives would light a fire under the industry, said Sean Whittaker, policy director at CanWEA. “In 10 years, if we really strengthen our domestic market … then Canada could be a world leader in this medium-sized [turbine] category that has huge potential.” Despite the expense and pollution of diesel generators, they are established in remote communities as the main source of electricity, so there needs to be an incentive to replace them with wind, he said. “Like any technology that is new to the landscape, it needs a push.” Under the CanWEA plan, wind developers or utilities serving large northern communities would get an incentive payment of 3 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated by wind. More remote communities would get 15 cents a kwh. About one-third of the money would come as upfront capital grants. In a decade this could lead to the installation of about 87 megawatts of wind power. ... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080128.wwind0128/BNStory/energy/

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