Alberta: Implement a Green Energy Feed In Tariff

UPDATE!! This petition is now closed.
{On Aug. 30, 2012, this petition was delivered to the Alberta Government. Roger Gagne, Chair of CAUSE (Citizens Advocating Use of Sustainable Energy) and Ken Hogg, founder and facilitator of the Alberta Renewable Energy Alliance (AREA), met with Ms. Sandra Locke, Assistant Deputy Minister of Energy (Electricity, Alternative Energy and CCS) to hand over the petition.

AREA is preparing a White Paper on renewable power to make recommendations to government, outlining our Province's potential for dramatically expanding our renewable power resources, particularly solar, while weaning our Province off of coal power.}

A feed-in tariff is simply a guaranteed price set by the government for anyone who wants to sell renewable electricity to the grid, and a guarantee that they will have access to the grid to do so.

Although overall electricity prices rise slightly in the short-term, in the longer term they stabilize as prices become increasingly independent of conventional fuel costs. For anyone who generates power under a feed-in tariff program, the income more than offsets any electricity price increases.

Feed-in tariffs have been extremely successful in Germany, which now generates 20% of its electricity from renewable sources while employing more than 250,000 people in the sector as a result of implementing a FIT, according to the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. They have over 5000 biogas generators scattered across the country, most of which provide an income stream to small scale farmers while providing electricity ready to balance the intermittency of wind and solar.

FITs have encouraged small, medium, and large-scale production of electricity from solar, wind, and other renewable sources in Spain, Australia, and the City of Gainesville, Fla.

Recently, Ontario has introduced FIT for $0.80 Kwh for Solar roof top <10KW. Nova Scotia also has a FIT, though it is limited to First Nations, community groups, and municipalities.

Alberta has extensive resources in solar, wind, and biomass, and we should allow the citizens to make better use of them.

There are many reasons why we must use renewable energy:
• Combat climate change.
• Create local jobs, industry and innovations.
• Diversify the energy supply.
• Foster local technical skills.
• Reduce the costs of renewable energy infrastructure.
• Minimize grid losses by encouraging local power generation.
• Replace aging power plants with clean alternatives.
• Give communities the power to be part of the solution.

Please take this simple step to both stimulate the economy and combat climate change, at no cost to the government.

Thank you for your time and consideration.