Rural power earns minister’s special attention gŏđŏ editionap.ca
OTTAWA | Farmers looking into “green en- ergy” projects to help supplement their income may hear some good news soon from the provincial government.
GENERAL SERVICE & MAINTENANCE Denis Lacroix M ÉCANICIEN C LASSE “A” C ELL .: 613 915-1752 2274 L ANDRY C LARENCE C REEK , ON The FIT program complements the Green Energy Act passed during the McGinty Lib- eral administration. Chiarelli said that spe- cific changes to the FIT program are still in the works but he indicated that the rural sector could expect to benefit from the re- visions. Ontario’s Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli confirmed that his people are looking into revisions to the Feed-In Tariff program (FIT) which promotes and encourages various alternative energy projects to help supple- ment the provincial power grid. Alternative energy projects that qualify for consideration under the FIT program range from solar farms to biodigesters which use manure and some organic gar- bage as fuel for a methane boiler that gen- erates electricity. “We’re reviewing how we can fine tune and improve the FIT for renewable energy in Ontario,” said Chiarelli during an inter- view in Ottawa May 3. “We expect to be able to announce some of those (revisions) within the next several months.”
Many farm owners in Eastern Ontario are looking into developing solar farm ar- rays or biodigesters for their operations, both to make themselves less dependent on outside energy supplies and also to sell any excess electricity their system create to the provincial power grid. Changes to the FIT setup could mean rural alternate energy proposals receiving a higher priority for ac- ceptance and could also mean greater local autonomy over “green” energy projects. “We’re very interested in having a pro- gram that is farm/agriculture/rural-friendly,” Chiarelli said, “and we’re considering some of those issues. I can’t say right now what exactly those (revisions) are, but certainly we’re going to implement a framework that gives more control to municipalities, and more opportunities, particularly for rural and smaller municipalities, to participate in the program, so that there is significant benefit for the community. In the foresee- able future we should be able to announce some very attractive changes to the FIT pro- gram.”
GREGGCHAMBERLAIN gregg.chamberlain@eap.on.ca
G174234_TS
WELCOME HOME DRIVE THRU
Walk-ins Welcome Nouveaux clients bienvenus
2875 rue Laporte. Come see our fresh new drive thru at
Coiffeuse pour homme
Hairstylist for men
Martine
G174248_TS
613 446-7370 • 2768, rue Laurier St., Rockland ON
© Tim Hortons, 2013
Made with FlippingBook HTML5