At the very end of May 2005, the Vancouver Chapter pulled
off a major coup by organizing the BC Wind Power Summit
with many key provincial leaders, held at BC Hydro and followed
by an evening meeting for the Vancouver Chapter’s members.
The trigger for the events was the visit to Vancouver by
Preben Maegaard, President of the World Wind Energy Association
(www.wwindea.org)
and Paul Gipe, the world-renowned wind energy leader, and
author of many books on wind energy (see www.wind-works.org)
The purpose of the two events was to educate people about
the policy which is having enormous success in advancing
sustainable energy around the world: the Advanced Renewables
Tariff, which we refer to as a Sustainable Energy Feed-In
Tariff in our new "Sustainable
Energy Policies for BC" document.
The Tariff has been adopted in 17 European countries, and
China, and works like this:
- All forms of sustainable energy are given guaranteed
access to the grid
- Each form of energy is given a guaranteed price per
kilowatt hour, varying according to the technology,
the location, and other factors.
- The price is guaranteed for up to 20 years, and is
set at a level designed to encourage private producers
and local cooperatives to invest in solar, wind, etc.
- The increased price is shared among all electricity
rate-payers. It does not come off taxes, or as a government
grant.
Wherever the Tariff has been adopted, sustainable energy
has flowed like honey, and we are hoping to build much greater
awareness of this in BC and Canada. Renewable Portfolio
Standards and subsidy systems such as the federal Wind Power
Production Incentive are nowhere near as effective in bringing
results. See this
article for more information. Congratulations to the
Vancouver Chapter for organizing this, and pulling it off!
