We need to triple solar and wind power in Ontario

Global use of renewable energy is soaring – in 2024, 92.5% of the world’s new electricity supply was renewable. Thanks to costs that have fallen dramatically over the past two decades, solar and wind are now the lowest cost sources of power available. Yet Ontario has not contracted for a single kilowatt of solar or wind energy in the past seven years. This is a huge missed opportunity.

With demand for electricity increasing to serve everything from heat pumps to EVs, solar and wind power are the best way to quickly add climate friendly power to our system. Instead of seizing this opportunity, the Ford government continues to roll out new polluting gas-fired power plants and make risky bets on massively expensive nuclear projects.

Ontario has no shortage of ways to catch up with a world that is going renewable. Everything from rooftop solar that lowers power bills for residents and creates a more resilient local grid, to offshore wind in the Great Lakes which can provide enough power to meet all of Ontario’s current needs, are just waiting to be tapped.

Ways to store this power have also multiplied and come down significantly in cost. We can use everything from stationary batteries and thermal storage, Quebec’s massive reservoir system, and a growing fleet of EVs to store power. Solar and wind plus storage is a much better bargain than gas or nuclear – for our wallets and our climate.

At the COP28 Climate Summit in 2023, 198 countries from around the world agreed to set a target of tripling renewable energy capacity. This action is key to keep global heating from reaching even more dangerous levels. It is also a cost effective and readily available way to reduce our climate impact while meeting the need to electrify homes and transportation.

Ontario should embrace the international target (which Canada signed onto) by tripling its solar and wind power.

These 50+ groups have signed onto a call for the Ontario government to triple wind and solar power by 2035.

Send a message calling for the Ontario Government to triple wind and solar power

While the Ford government has finally agreed to get back to building renewable power in this province, it is throwing massive amounts of money at polluting gas plants and risky new nuclear projects. Right now, the province is looking to build or re-build up to 26,500 MW of expensive and slow-to-deploy nuclear energy.

Not only is nuclear power and gas twice as expensive as wind and solar plus storage, they do nothing to address our need to reduce climate damaging emissions right now. Increased fossil gas burning makes these emissions worse while nuclear projects will take a decade or more to complete, leaving us dependent on gas burning for years to come.

This is a very outdated strategy for meeting our electricity needs and one that has been abandoned by many other countries.  It will be better for our economy, our health and our climate if we move to a highly efficient, renewable powered electricity system instead.