For Immediate Release:
November 21, 2005
“Huge” green power reserves
can fuel jobs, economy
Victoria, BC (November 21, 2005)—British Columbia has
huge reserves of green power that could stimulate enormous
economic development and employment opportunity, with as
many as 400,000 new jobs over 25 years, and establish BC
as a leader in renewable energy, according to a report released
today by the BC Sustainable Energy Association (BCSEA).
Tallying the province’s green energy potential from
wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and other technologies, combined
with energy-savings from efficiency measures, would produce
84,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) a year. This is 50% more than
BC Hydro’s current total generation and enough power
for 8.4 million homes.
“BC can be a global leader in green energy technologies
if it chooses to,” said Guy Dauncey, BCSEA president
and author of the report, Sustainable Energy Solutions
for BC, prepared as a submission to the BC Alternative Energy
and Power Technology Task Force. The Task Force is expected
to release its findings soon. BC Hydro is also due to release
its 2005 Integrated Electricity Plan that will outline how
BC Hydro expects to meet anticipated customer electrical
demand over the next 20 years.
The BCSEA report identifies tidal energy as
BC’s largest
long-term source of potential power: 13,000 GWh/yr. A further
12,500 GWh /yr could be freed up by 2025 by saving electricity
currently used wastefully. BC also has the potential for
11,000 GWh a year of wind energy. Full- and part-time jobs
created over the 25-year period total 413,000 jobs, including
installation of solar PV roof systems and retrofitting homes
and businesses to double their energy efficiency. The report
draws on BC Hydro energy resource data and a variety of employment
studies to arrive at these conclusions.
(N.B. See table “BC’s Long-Term Potential for
Sustainable Electricity Resources and Jobs” on next
page.)
“BC’s impressive solar energy potential is very
similar to that of Germany, a world-leader in solar installations
thanks to progressive government energy policies,” said
Kevin Pegg, of EA Energy Alternatives Ltd., a Victoria solar,
wind and microhydro company. “Washington State recently
announced incentives to grow their renewables industry: If
they can do it, so can we.”
“The challenge is not technical”, said Guy Dauncey. “It
lies with the decision to prioritize sustainable energy over
other sources, such as coal, coal-bed methane, natural gas,
or large-scale hydro.” BC Hydro is currently following
a voluntary commitment that 50% of its energy will come from “clean” resources,
which includes cogeneration from natural gas. BC Hydro’s
2005 Integrated Electricity Plan may conclude that BC’s
future power should come from green resources such as those
described in the BCSEA report, or from coal-fired power,
the Site-C dam, natural gas, or a combination of these sources.
“Deploying these resources will require a transition
over several years along with some transition costs,” said
Dale Littlejohn, a Vancouver sustainable energy consultant
and BCSEA director, “but we can do this profitably
while improving jobs, health and the economy. As a bonus,
we can make BC fossil-free by 2025 and set an example for
the rest of the world.”
The full report is available at: www.bcsea.org/policy/taskforcereport.asp
- 30 -
| |
MW |
GWh/year |
Cents/kWh |
Jobs |
Wind |
5000 |
11,000 |
6-12 |
31,250(1) |
Microhydro |
2530 |
11,108 |
4-9 |
5,700(2) |
Wood waste biomass |
215 |
1800 |
4-9 |
484(3) |
Geothermal |
1070 |
9,000 |
5-9 |
7,000(4) |
Tidal |
2225 |
13,000 |
11-25 |
13,906(5) |
Landfill |
15 |
85 |
4-5 |
20(6) |
Solar PV |
6000 |
12,000 |
60 - 20 |
210,000(7) |
Total potential
power |
58,000 |
|
|
Efficiency |
n/a |
12,500 |
3-6 |
145,200(8) |
Solar Hot Water |
n/a |
10,000 |
n/a |
[60,000](9) |
GeoExchange Heating |
n/a |
3,750(10) |
n/a |
[21,420](11) |
Total |
|
84,250 |
|
413,560 |
1 Assumes 6.25 jobs per MW: 6 per MW in manufacturing
and installation, 1 in planning, and 0.25 in maintenance.
(BCSEA data)
2 Assumes 2.25 jobs per MW; 2 in installation and 0.25 permanent. www.justenergy.org/news/010504freepress.html
3 Assumes same basis as for microhydro
4 Assumes 5.7 jobs per MW. See Employment Benefits of Using Geothermal Energy
(US Dept of Energy). www.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/employ_benefits.html
5 Assumes same basis as wind energy.
6 Assumes 1.5 jobs per MW.
7 Assumes 35 jobs per MW, including manufacturing, sales and installation (Job
Creation Potential of Solar, CanSIA January 2005).
8 Pembina Institute. 1997. Comparative Analysis of Employment from Air Emission
Reduction Measures. Energy efficiency programs produce an average of 37 jobs
per million dollars of investment, compared to seven jobs for conventional energy
supplies including natural gas and coal.
9 Assumes 6 jobs per 1000 square meters (Job Creation Potential of Solar, CanSIA
January 2005). Typical unit = 4 square metres. 2.5 million installations = 10
million square metres = 60,000 jobs. Not included in jobs total, to avoid double-counting
with efficiency jobs total.
10 Assumes 25% uptake of market potential for new buildings and retrofits, based
on data from www.geoexchangebc.ca
11 In the absence of any known study, this assumes the
same “jobs per kWh
saved” ratio as for solar hot water, which translates
to 6 jobs per GWh saved. Not included in the jobs total,
for the same reason as solar hot water.
|
