The funding for the Emerging Renewable Power Program is part of the Government’s investment of $21.9 billion over 11 years to support green infrastructure under the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change.
The program is designed to help drive Canada’s efforts to build a clean economy by expanding commercial and utility-scale viable, investment-ready, renewable power technologies, such as tidal, geothermal and offshore wind. Interested parties can submit applications by February 11, 2018.
According to Carr, Over time, by making these technologies readily available, this will help Canada’s electricity system draw on a more diverse set of clean technologies and make an even greater contribution to the country’s climate change commitments.
“This program will help pave the way to a low-carbon future by further diversifying Canada’s clean electricity mix, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and supporting the growth of clean jobs and new green industries,” states Carr.
Canada has been blessed with plenty of natural resources, especially for hydropower. And according to a 2017 National Energy Board report, close to two-thirds of Canada’s power generating capacity already comes from renewable energy, with 58.8 percent of all nationwide electricity generation in 2016 coming from hydropower.
But Natural Resources Canada is also looking at emerging renewable resources, like geothermal, tidal power, offshore wind, smaller hydropower plants and solar-combined plants. These emerging renewable projects “face higher risks, costs and more regulatory issues than projects using established renewable energy sources,” Natural Resources Canada says.
The program wants to know about projects that are either not in Canada but already established commercially in other countries, or in Canada, but haven’t been scaled up. The government will even think about funding environmental assessments associated with any energy plans submitted.
In related news, the government also announced $700 million over five years for the clean technology industry through the Business Development Bank of Canada, part of the 2017 budget’s $2.3 billion for cleantech.
