Make Money Locally with the Green Energy Act and Biogas

All the right pieces are falling into place in Ontario to encourage the growth of community-based biogas systems. When the province passed the Green Energy and Economy act earlier this year, it created a new Feed-in Tariff for renewable energy and tweaked some other key laws – specifically in favour of small power projects.

Rising Prices

The prices paid for biogas projects have increased to:

• 19.5 ¢ per kilowatt hour for less than 100 kW
• 18.5 ¢/kWh for less than 250 kW
• 16 ¢/kWh for less than 500 kW

This is the exactly the kind of scale that individual communities and farmers can produce. In addition, a bonus of 1.5 ¢/kWh is available to community or aboriginal groups. That shit can produce some good returns, close to 30%.

Front of the Line Access

One of the rule changes mandated the move of all connection-ready projects that are less than 500 kW for higher voltages and 250 kW or less for lower voltages, to the front of the connection queue. This is very significant, as historically some projects have had to wait 18 months just to get connected and start selling their power.

Easier Permitting and Approval

With the the Green Energy Act, the province is also simplifying the process for renewable energy project approval.  A new application process has been created, whereby individual projects submit the appropriate impact assessments. Luckily for the little guy, on-farm biogas projects are exempt from the process.

This isn’t rocket science, biogas systems have been in use for over 200 years, and over 700 projects will be commissioned in Germany alone this year. Currently in Ontario, there about 20 projects under development and less than 10 in operation, but there is the potential for over a 1,000 plants across the province.

Talk to the people in your community, see if they’re interested in growing local value and creating jobs – with biogas. That’s what ReGenerate is all about, I’m here to help you make it happen in your community.

photo credit: chad_k