Canada: Use Feed-In Tariffs to Stimulate Green Power
A Feed-in Tariff is an incentive program that stimulates the renewable energy sector through government legislation. It requires electricity utilities to buy renewable energy at above market rates (set by the government) from anyone who wishes to produce renewable electricity. This has been shown to be one of the most effective ways to jump-start renewable energy production and adoption by rewarding small and medium scale producers as well as industrial scale producers of green power.
Although overall electricity prices rise slightly in the short-term, in the longer term they stabilize as prices become increasingly independent of conventional fuel costs. For anyone who generates power under a feed-in tariff program, the income more than offsets any electricity price increases.
Germany has been extremely successful at rapidly transitioning toward renewable energy systems through feed-in tariffs. Using feed-in tariffs, Germany currently generates 12.5% of its electricity from renewable sources, while employing more than 215,000 people in the renewable energy sector, according to the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.
Feed-in tariffs exist in more than 20 other countries as well. They are the
most common policy for encouraging renewable energy systems, in part because feed-in mechanisms achieve larger deployment at lower costs than other policy mechanisms such as quotas, direct incentives or voluntary goals.
A Feed-in Tariff is an incentive program that stimulates the renewable energy sector through government legislation. It requires electricity utilities to buy renewable energy at above market rates (set by the government) from anyone who wishes to produce renewable electricity. This has been shown to be one of the most effective ways to jump-start renewable energy production and adoption by rewarding small and medium scale producers as well as industrial scale producers of green power.
Although overall electricity prices rise slightly in the short-term, in the longer term they stabilize as prices become increasingly independent of conventional fuel costs. For anyone who generates power under a feed-in tariff program, the income more than offsets any electricity price increases.
Germany has been extremely successful at rapidly transitioning toward renewable energy systems through feed-in tariffs. Using feed-in tariffs, Germany currently generates 12.5% of its electricity from renewable sources, while employing more than 215,000 people in the renewable energy sector, according to the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.
Feed-in tariffs exist in more than 20 other countries as well. They are the
most common policy for encouraging renewable energy systems, in part because feed-in mechanisms achieve larger deployment at lower costs than other policy mechanisms such as quotas, direct incentives or voluntary goals.
Feed-in tariffs have been extremely successful in Germany and over 20 other countries, where they have encouraged small, medium, and large-scale production of electricity from solar, wind, and other renewable sources. For instance Germany currently generates 12.5% of its electricity from renewable sources, while employing more than 215,000 people in the renewable energy sector, as a result of implementing feed-in tariffs, according to the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.
A feed-in tariff is simply a guaranteed price set by the government for anyone who wants to sell renewable electricity to the grid, and a guarantee that they will have access to the grid to do so. Although overall electricity prices rise slightly in the short-term, in the longer term they stabilize as prices become increasingly independent of conventional fuel costs. For anyone who generates power under a feed-in tariff program, the income more than offsets any electricity price increases.
Please take this simple step to both stimulate the economy and combat climate change, at no cost to the government.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
I feel in the market economies there is not developed at sufficient level a market relation reflecting damages caused by using fosil sources(usually cheaper than renewables but in fact if you add these damages much more expensive) and prefer investment in renewable clean sources
Seems like a no brainer for the Alberta government to allow and pay for electricity supplied by environmentally friendly Albertians.
|
11:00 am PDT, Apr 4,
Sarah Baker, Illinois
If you make this option available, it may surprise you how many people would support it. I know I'd rather look at wind generators and solar panels than smoke stacks and their effects! |
Please adopt a renewable energy feed-in tariff for Alberta. We need to quit using coal fired electricity when we have other options for Albertans. Let's develop the economy, create jobs, and save our fossil fuels for industrial applications. Derek Brown
Time is running out. We need to think out of the "box" and make changes.
renewable energy is very important because it will be a substitute to different things in the future.
Regardless of climate change, renewable energy is the way of the future, the only way to provide energy in the long term, and a FIT is exactly what we need to jump start renewables, to keep our economy strong and healthy.
It is urgent that Canada, as well as the rest of the world, do the absolute most it can to decrease GHG emissions as soon as possible before there is irreparable damage to the planet.
Given that the international scientific community seems to be in agreement that we are at a tipping point of being able to avoid catastrophic events due to global climate changes, we need ways to dramatically alter our capacity to gather renewable energy. Dispersed and diverse means of energy production will be more sustainable. Government needs to provide leadership on this. This cannot be a purely economic decision. It is a decision to choose life.
