Ontario takes smart grid up a notch

The Canadian province of Ontario is fast becoming one of the leading sustainable regions in North America, with the government now investing in a fund to give families and businesses more control over how and when they use electricity.

The $50 million investment will support the growth and development of a smart grid within Ontario while also creating jobs, according to officials. Once implemented successfully, the smart grid will allow consumers to control appliances and lights in their homes from anywhere at anytime. This will help to improve services provided by utilities in the state as it allows them to pinpoint and automatically fix power outages.

The McGuinty government in Ontario has a long-term plan to rejuvenate the province’s electricity system, reduce pollution from coal-fired power plants and maintain power supplies in homes and businesses. The smart grid will go a long way toward helping it meet those goals.

To help Ontarians manage the costs of turning on cleaner, reliable power, the government is:

• Taking 10 per cent off monthly electricity bills for families, farms and small businesses over the next five years with the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit;
• Moving the time-of-use off-peak period for electricity from 9 pm to 7 pm on weekdays starting May 1. This will provide an extra 10 hours of electricity each week at the lowest available rate.

The province also implemented a feed-in tariff incentive policy in 2009, meaning renewable energy installed capacity is on the up as well. In the past eight years, more than 800 wind turbines have been installed. The region is also home to the world’s largest solar photovoltaics plant.

The difference between North America and Europe is really the sheer scale of the individual provinces and states, which are the size of countries in Europe. This represents a larger-scale problem with moving toward a low-carbon future, as the responsibility for implementing incentives that drive the market falls on state governments. Although Ontario is taking aggressive action, other poorer states might not have the money or political will to implement the necessary changes.

Perhaps this is why Europe is leading the way in renewable energy and smart grid developments, simply because the scale of uptake is more manageable. The centralised targets from the EU help to lay a foundation, pressuring ember states to push toward ambitious targets. If the same ideology could be implemented in the US and Canada, it could push smart grid and renewables growth into an even faster lane.