How much wind is too much
When you have $10MM in a space, you tend to pay particular attention to relevant front page news stories ;-). The Globe and Mail’s piece this morning was curious in a way. To talk about the spectre of a 5,000 MW cap on Ontario wind power production, when there’s only 320MW currently turning and another 960MW “in planning stages”, is akin to worrying about how many seats the Toronto NFL stadium will have should we ever get a franchise.
I was pleased to see Vestas Wind’s marketshare figures. Our portfolio company Ventus is working with them, and while we all might have thought that GE was the big player in the game, the Danes have done this well. And with a three year waiting list, you know they’ve got the hot product.
As for needing to cap wind power production, last time I checked Ontario didn’t really have an energy strategy at all — other than to not close the coal plants in 2007 as originally promised by Premier McGuinty…. Thank on high that the private sector is doing its thing.
MRM
This Ontario energy supply mix paper by the OPA highlights the challenges in the next two decades. I agree that exact strategy on how to address the energy gap is not clear.
However, Ontario’s standard offer contract (10MW) for renewable energy projects are clearly steps in the right direction. Though ambitious, 5000MW from wind power in the future would just replace the current output from coal-plants.
But the energy gap by 2025 according to the OPA report would be 24,000MW (!), so need a helluva LOT more than just wind to get there.
Getting to 5000MW of Ontario wind generation capability would be fantastic for the Province and the Wind Assoc. Lots of capital required to hit that stage though, as well.
In addition to financing airport luggage carts (for example), the infrastructure players need to get more involved for this to happen.