Niagara’s Water Power Prowess Embraces the Allure of Wind

While the Niagara Region of Canada is known worldwide for its magnificent waterfalls and associated hydro power, the Ontario Clean Technology Alliance is attending WINDPOWER 2013 in Chicago to announce a series of national and international wind investments by companies including Capital Power Inc., Enercon Canada Inc., Niagara Region Wind Corp. (NRWC), NextEra Energy Canada ULC, REpower Systems SE, Samsung Renewable Energy Inc., and TSP Canada Towers Inc.

These companies are manufacturing components and building an estimated 200 wind turbines that will soon dot the landscape in a swath extending throughout Ontario’s Haldimand County and into the Niagara Region. They are attracted by an excellent wind profile and connections to existing transmission lines that carry power from Niagara Falls into southern Ontario’s manufacturing heartland.

The wind power infrastructure investment is also made possible by the Province of Ontario’s visionary Green Energy Act of 2009 that helped ignite growth in the production of clean and renewable energy. Since 2009, Ontario’s Clean Energy Strategy is helping to build on the $27 billion in private sector clean energy investments attracted to Ontario. Ontario’s clean energy sector has already created 31,000 jobs and over 30 clean energy companies have set up shop in the province.

“While the 230-megawatt industrial wind turbine project by NRWC is the Niagara Region’s largest, promising 770 construction phase jobs through to 2014 and 110 more to maintain the turbine structures, the Ontario Clean Technology Alliance team is working hard to build on this momentum,” says Valerie Kuhns, Sector Manager for the Niagara Region’s Economic Development Department.

She cites three foreign companies — Denmark’s Avanti Wind Systems, Helukabel USA, Inc. and Synergy Cables USA Ltd. — that have recently set up shop across Ontario as a direct result of Ontario Clean Technology Alliance investor pitches at international wind industry trade shows.

Kuhns’ employer is one of eight municipal members of the Ontario Clean Technology Alliance that also includes the Southwestern Ontario Marketing Alliance, The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Employment.

Kuhns also points out that just last week, wind turbine manufacturer PowerBlades Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of German-based REpower Systems SE, chose Welland, also in the Niagara Region, as the site of a blade production factory that will serve the province’s wind project needs as well as supply the rest of the North American market.

PowerBlades is currently looking for experts in the fields of logistics, purchasing, management as well as production workers and maintenance technicians. The new German-backed Ontario company will create about 125 jobs within its first phase and about 75 within its second phase of operations.

Ontario is Canada’s largest province by population, and clean technology industries take advantage of an Ontario government economic growth strategy, backed by a comprehensive series of legislative, regulatory and policy initiatives specifically designed to support the expansion of clean, green industries.

Overwhelmed by turbines

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has been increasingly concerned about the targeting of the East Riding by wind turbine developers.

This particular form of renewable energy is blighting the landscape, despite the best efforts of East Riding Council.

Current government policy confusion encourages wind developers to make applications almost regardless of landscape impact or the suitability of the site.

The East Riding has been overwhelmed by the number of applications and CPRE Yorkshire and Humber is seeking support from local MPs to lobby the Government to develop a strategic plan-led approach that recognises landscape capacity, including the cumulative impact of onshore wind turbines.

We also want to see more power given to local authorities seeking to protect the landscape character through their local plans and in planning decisions and we will fully support East Riding Council in any efforts it makes to wrest back some control over local planning decisions on wind turbines.

Were we all being naive when we thought the Localism Act was intended to give local people more say over local planning decisions?

The proliferation of wind turbines across the area has increased calls by CPRE members for a major rethink by the Government on this particular form of renewable energy, which we all pay for in inflated energy bills, and has such a huge impact on the visual landscape.

Party members are set to gather at the Gynsills pub, next to County Hall in Glenfield, to outline policies they hope will help them make inroads at the Leicestershire County Council elections next month.

The party, led nationally by Nigel Farage, has produced a manifesto it will be using in local elections across England, but said its policies would resonate with voters in Leicestershire.

Former deputy county council leader David Sprason, who defected to UKIP from the Conservatives this year, said: “Our manifesto is specific to local elections and most of the issues raised go across the entire country.”

He said a UKIP-controlled county council would freeze council – the Conservatives who currently control the council have proposed raising it by 1.5 per cent annually for three years after the election.

“We will freeze it for four years. We will pay for that by cutting council managers. We have too many bloated chief executives of departments. “We would also cut the size of the cabinet by 50 per cent.”

Coun Sprason said UKIP would lobby to leave the EU and spend the UK’s contribution to Brussels on local government services. UKIP’s manifesto also opposes wind turbine and solar farm subsidies and the HS2 rail scheme.

It carries a prominent warning that the “UK will open its door to unlimited numbers of people from Romania and Bulgaria” from 2014. Coun Sprason said: “We will call for an in/out referendum on Europe now.

“We will also have local referendums on important issues to give people a say on things such as the Barwell expansion.

“We are the new kids on the block and the other parties are running scared. We are getting a really good reception on the doorstep and we are listening.”

County council Labour group leader Max Hunt said: “When communities in Leicestershire are facing very complex problems, UKIP has come up with simplistic solutions that won’t work.

“It’s hard to take seriously. They are trying to frighten people with their talk of immigration.” Coun Kevin Feltham, who is running the Tory campaign, said: “They are promising things they cannot achieve at the county council – things that would need changes by the Government.