Polynerd

This is renewable energy blog post 7 of 200

Today I had the pleasure to speak with Dan Balaban, the CEO of Greengate Power Corporation. The company is concentrating on developing wind energy projects in areas with available transmission infrastructure. In other words, they make sure that the windy places they use for their windmills but are close to power lines. They've recently recieved approval from Alberta Utilities Commission for a 150MW wind project in central Alberta 40 km east of Stettler and have 1,400 MW in the works

You can see all of the company's projects with this handy map.

I was talking with Balaban for a story I'm working on about Bill 50 and during the conversation he brought up the issue of renewable energy portfolio standards. These are obligations or targets to produce a certain amount of electricity from renewable sources. This is not groundbreaking legislation. More than 30 US states have one form or another of these. According to this site; BC, Ontario, Quebec and PEI have all instituted some form of renewable portfolio standard.

Producing 20% of Alberta's electricity from clean sources by 2020 is not only a reasonable goal, it should be a minimum, considering the embarassment of riches Alberta is blessed with (yet again) in respect to wind, solar and biomass resources.

Balaban believes these portfolio standards are an important first step in making Alberta a friendly place for the renewable energy industry. After all, Alberta is a province that up until Sept. 26, 2007 had a hard cap of 900MW on wind projects in Alberta while we figured out how to integrate groundbreaking and state of the art   regular old wind power into our grid. This didn't exactly give Alberta a head start.

So, provincial legislators. I challenge you to show some vision. Draw up renewable energy portfolio standards legislation now.