Small scale energy ideas

The Chronicle Journal
November 20, 2011

Small scale energy ideas

FINANCE Minister Dwight Duncan will give Ontarians an economic update on Wednesday. It won’t be pretty. This province is in real trouble and the government is pinning a lot of hope on its bold green energy plan, paying wind and solar developers a rich premium to set up power installations and build the components here.

Energy has become wrapped up in politics and as the Legislature prepares to re-open on Monday, the opposition parties have found common ground. They will ask the government to remove the 13-per-cent HST from home heating bills. This is not particularly unreasonable except that the government needs every penny it can find. It is not about to forgo $350 million a year in tax revenue.

Duncan, who helped to oversee enormous spending increases by the Liberal government, suddenly has found fiscal religion. The HST proposal is a “reckless tax giveaway,” he said the other day, though his government already cuts 10 per cent off electricity bills. Some might call that reckless in this economic climate.

Many Ontarians will have real trouble paying their electricity bills this winter, due in large part to the amount of the HST. If the government can’t afford a tax break, it might reconsider all-day kindergarten — a $1.5-billion day care program that many see as reckless.
Or, it might continue down the path of energy enlightenment to help homeowners directly.

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance doesn’t like the proposal to remove the HST from home heating, either, calling it fiscally and environmentally irresponsible. But it does have some good ideas.

The main barrier to home energy retrofits is their high up-front capital cost. The alliance says electric and natural gas utilities could provide financial incentives and low-interest, on-bill financing for home energy retrofits; and establish rental programs for high-efficiency water heaters and furnaces, thermal storage units (for those with electric heating), and solar and geothermal heating systems.

Scaled-down, green services to homes and neighbourhoods can be made doubly attractive with incentives that Ontarians deserve every bit as much as multinational developers.