Colin Anderson0:00
We at the Ontario Power Authority are very excited about this program. The minister mentioned that Ontarians across the province are very excited, but I think we're even more excited about the fact that we're finally getting to see that the program is not only up and running and we've made it through the initial launch period, but we're now seeing that contracts are coming into existence and, more importantly, the program is being brought to life, and we're getting to see real-life examples. As you've heard, the response to the program has been tremendous. This is a groundbreaking program, not only in North America, not only in Ontario, but across North America. It really enables just about anyone in the province to generate electricity but also earn money at the same time while they're doing so. That means really great opportunities and new opportunities for homeowners, for First Nations and Metis groups, for community organizations, small businesses, large businesses, schools, municipalities, hospitals — really, the list goes on. While this morning's announcement focuses on projects that are between 10 and 500 kilowatts, stay tuned for more announcements because there's a lot more to come. In April, contracts for our microFIT projects — those are the small ones, 10 kilowatts or less — are also going to be announced in the coming weeks. As of March 5th, we've sent almost 2,000 conditional offers already for those kinds of projects. Those projects need to get their approvals to connect to the grid through their local electricity distribution company before the contracts can be finalized, but they're really moving along at a good clip as well. Next month, we're also going to announce the contracts for the FIT program, which is our larger-sized program for projects that are over 500 kilowatts in size. Because of their larger size, they're generally more complex projects and they need to undergo more assessment tests with regards to their impact on the distribution system as well as the transmission system. Currently, we've got about 2,500 megawatts of available space on our transmission system for these types of programs. So, like I was saying, there's lots more to come. We're continuing to receive applications, we're going to continue to process them once we get through this first round review as well. I also wanted to note that the FIT program, the Feed-In Tariff program, isn't our only successful collaboration with Loblaws. Loblaws was one of the first companies in Ontario to provide demand response to the grid, which means that they can reduce their electricity demand by 10 megawatts when the system really needs it. So thank you to Loblaws for that as well, and thank you for your participation in the Feed-In Tariff program, because I really sincerely hope that other retailers will follow the great example that you're setting for everyone. It's also my hope that one of the spin-offs of the Feed-In Tariff program is that the people who participate in this program — the organizations, the companies that participate in it — will also gain a heightened awareness of how much electricity they're actually using. So they'll be producing electricity, but we're also hopeful that that will make them think about their own electricity use and using electricity more wisely at the same time. So in closing, once again I want to thank Loblaws. I want to thank the hundreds and thousands of individuals, businesses, and institutions across Ontario that have really embraced the Feed-In Tariff program and green energy. We're well on our way to a very, very successful program. So thank you very much.
