Ontario’s Green Energy Experience

With the enactment of the Green Energy and Green Economy Act (Green Energy Act) in 2009, the Ontario government committed ratepayers to massive subsidization of various forms of renewable energy, especially wind power and solar energy, along with the phasing out of coal- fired generation in the province – a goal achieved in 2014. [...] Essential Policy Intelligence 2 e-Brief Any evaluation of the impact of Ontario’s green energy policies to date should focus on three factors: i) the costs of renewable energy; ii) the environmental impact of these policies; and iii) their impact on employment in the province. [...] At the time of the enactment of the Green Energy Act, officials were optimistic that the impact on electricity costs would be modest.3 A little more than two years later, however, the Ontario government released its 20- 1 This figure is the sum of monthly averages of the Hourly Ontario Electricity Price and the Global Adjustment for 2009. [...] In a study for Energy Probe, Brady Yauch reports that the average increase in the price of the energy component in electricity prices in Ontario has been 107 percent over the last nine years compared to an increase in the Consumer Price Index over this period of 17.8 percent. [...] For example, in her 2016 Annual Report, the Ontario Auditor General includes preliminary estimates by the Ministry of Finance at $285 in 2019 for the direct (e.g., gas and natural gas) and indirect (goods and services) costs to the average Ontario household of the proposed new cap-and-trade system that Ontario is negotiating with Quebec and California (Ontario, Auditor General 2016).