Community Power is locally owned green power generation.

A very visible example of Community Power is the Exhibition Place Turbine at Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition grounds – the first community owned wind power project in Ontario. The project is a joint venture of the WindShare Co-operative and Toronto Hydro.

Community Power supports sustainable energy. It is located in and responsible to the local community. This results in a more distributed and egalitarian system of electricity generation and transmission. Projects may be owned and operated by co-operatives, farmers, or municipalities.

Community Power is generated from environmentally friendly sources such as wind, solar, methane recapture and run-of-river hydro.

10 Benefits of Community Power

• More renewable energy - The success of wind energy in Denmark and Germany is largely due to community ownership.
• Stimulates economic development - Creates new skilled jobs and long-term investment throughout Ontario.
• Strengthens rural communities - Generates new income for farmers and rural landowners.
• Increases local acceptance - Democratic ownership, community involvement and member education encourages acceptance.
• Conserves energy - Increased member education and awareness leads to reduced consumption.
• Saves money - Generating energy closer to where it is used reduces transmission and distribution costs.
• Protects the environment - Reduces air pollution and the emission of gasses that contribute to climate change.
• Improves health - Reduces smog-related illnesses and premature deaths.
• Ethical investment - Offers a socially responsible investment for the every-day Ontarian.
• Improves grid reliability - Smaller scale, localized generation helps avoid massive ‘Blackouts’ of August 2003.

Ontario Community Power Projects in Development

These projects represent:

• 100 MW of new, renewable, distributed electricity generation within the next 5 years.
• Approximately 75,000 Ontario constituents directly participating in renewable energy development and production.
• Up to $100,000,000 in new investment, along with skilled employment during the construction and operations phases of the project.
• More energy dollars staying at home - typically, 75% to 90% of every dollar paid on an electricity bill leaves our communities. Since citizens will own community power projects, more $$ will stay in the community to re-circulate, providing spin-off economic benefits.

Community Power: Working Together

Community Power supports a broad range of government policies:

Electricity System

• Creation of more electricity to supply Ontario’s growing population.
• Allows for private investment in generation, within a regulated framework with public accountability.
• Community power drives incremental new project development & greater acceptance for new technologies and business models.

Environment

• Replaces coal with cleaner power generation through renewable energy technologies.
• Accelerates the development of renewable energy projects.
• Does not produce hazardous waste.
• Biogas provides new use for waste by-products, protecting groundwater.
• Co-operative members gain a greater awareness of energy consumption and the need for conservation

Ontario’s Economy

• Best of both worlds – private ownership, rooted in and responsible to local communities.
• Promotes economic development for rural, agricultural and northern communities.
• Builds a more diverse and innovative economy.
• Creates new jobs.
• Renewables such as wind and bio-gas are usually sited in rural, agricultural and northern communities.
• Wind power is an explosive new industry – growing 30% annually worldwide.
• OSEA estimates that an aggressive wind development program could produce 97,000 new jobs in Canada by 2012.

Agricultural Industry

• Ensuring sustainable, dependable farm incomes.
• Develop new markets for Ontario agricultural products (e.g. ethanol, bio-diesel).
• Wind and bio-gas generate new revenue sources for farmers, with long-term, stable income streams.
• Biogas provides new markets for agricultural by-products.