Green Energy Act 2009

The Ontario Green Energy Act (GEA), formally the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009, introduced in the Ontario legislature on February 23, 2009, is intended to expand renewable energy production, encourage energy conservation and create green jobs. Among many clauses, the GEA is best known for creating a number of feed-in tariff rates for different types of energy sources. Notable among these is the microFIT program for small non-commercial systems under 10 kilowatts, and FIT, the larger commercial version which covers a number of project types with sizes into the megawatts.

The GEA has been highly controversial within Ontario for the high initial tariff rates, up to 80.2 cents/kWh for small systems under microFIT. It has also been controversial outside Ontario due to its "made in Ontario" clauses which demand a certain amount of Ontario labour and manufacturing input in order to receive the tariff rates. Changes to the program and rates, some of them applied retroactively, had added confusion and complaints about the way the program is managed. The GEA was a major issue during the 2011 provincial elections, with the PC party threatening to cancel it outright if elected, while the Liberals supporting it as a primary plank of their re-election platform.

Prior to the introduction of the GEA, Ontario had enacted a number of different programs to introduce renewable energy or promote conservation. These included the Energy Conservation Leadership Act, the Energy Efficiency Act and of particular note, November 2006's Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program. The Standard Offer, also known as SOP or RESOP for short, introduced a number of fixed 20-year feed-in tariffs for hydro, wind, solar (PV) and biomass projects. RESOP tariffs were relatively low, 42 cents/kWh for PV and 11 cents/kWh for other forms of energy. At the time, RESOP was named North America's first true feed-in tariff program.

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