This could be good. Tasty even. The Ontario government announced today a feed-in tariff program for green energy production. A feed-in tariff (FIT) is a system of financial incentives by governments to promote renewable energy. FITs have been used to great success in different places around the world and particularly in Germany to promote green energy production and jobs. Basically the government agrees to pay a "premium" price for renewable energy to promote growth and energy production. I say "premium" because the price we pay for power is in fact already super subsidized (including through massive corporate support to energy companies) and the prices paid in FITs reflect more actual costs it seems to me. Producing energy is expensive.
The government announcement claims it is the "first" feed-in tariff in North America and the veracity of that claim depends on the definition of a FIT but more importantly how good is it? I spoke with green energy and building consultant Melinda Zytaruk who is cautiously excited about today's announcement (disclosure: I work with Melinda on a green building project). "This FIT is probably the most aggressive in North America," Melinda said. "What i like about it on the surface is that there are multiple components here like a renewable energy facilitation office, it could be fabulous, or it could be bureaucratic hell. But right now, it looks like a great start ."
Not all of the final numbers are out but the numbers released today match the government's draft FIT price schedule . Small (under 10KW) rooftop solar installations will get 80.2 cents/kw hour with a "price adder" for "local communities and First Nation and Métis communities to build, own and operate their own renewable energy projects". In theory this is great. I'm excited. Then again when was the last time there was a government project that actually supported Indigenous peoples?
So what else might cause people to lose their appetites? Well a few problems. As Melinda pointed out while it is great to have a requirement, as the program does, that a "certain percentage of their project costs come from Ontario goods and labour at the time they reach commercial operation" it is unclear what this means in practice. One challenge is that there are not many, if any really, solar manufactures in Ontario anymore. And the plan states that for "micro solar PV (10 kW or smaller), the requirement will start at 40% and increase to 60% on Jan. 1, 2011." A search today of the Canadian Solar Industries Association website and Solar Buzz product manufactures listings for Canada reveals that most solar companies are installers not manufacturers. In fact the latter listed only three, one makes a single part of the PV panel, one only works with heating swimming pools and one international company that has offices in Ontario so maybe they build them. Some Ontario solar manufacturers have moved to, you guessed it, Germany.
This might not be a super challenge if the government commits to the plan to draw in builders (but that still takes time). "How long will they be offering these contracts?" Melinda asks. You don't entice major capital investment in a big plant if companies aren't confident that the FIT will keep being offered. This might get addressed but again unclear. Also, Melinda pointed out, the new rule to keep wind turbines 550 meters from residential properties is a much stricter standard than anything in Europe. This could also spook manufactures and investors as it will, by definition, reduce the spaces that turbines can go up.
And finally, how does the FIT affect low-income people? Greenpeace addressed this problem this week in a new report arguing that the main argument against FITs is that they cause "an increase in electricity prices for households and industry as the extra costs are shared across all customers." They rightly point out that conservation programs and progressive tax burdens should be put in to offset this issue. I'm not going to hold my breath that, for example, the Liberals will put in a more progressive income tax to offset energy costs for low -income people. There are some programs for low-income energy support, but a more systemic plan should go hand in hand with a green incentive program.
This is especially true because a FIT program will tend to benefit financially those with more cash/capital. It will benefit the planet in some ways of course and general health with cleaner energy, but it is also a money making opportunity. In fact the province argues you can pay off a PV investment in ten years and start making cash. For those that don't have the means to get in on it though (even through community support "adders") lets take some of the cash that has been dumped on the nuclear industry and see some real support around low-income energy.
Still, it looks like there will be exciting ways that people and communities can get together and work with this FIT to promote things like community owned turbines and other projects. People are certainly hungry for it.
nb. The August '09 Draft micro-FIT contract is no longer available online. In the December version, linked in Jan. 15 comments above, contract prices are determined separately for each contract. In the case of solar generation, micro-FIT contract prices are fixed for designated time periods, as per section 4. For other contracts, prices may vary with an Indexed Contract Price according to variables in the formula of Appendix B.
For the small solar producers, theoretically the price they receive from the LDC or other agent of OPA should stay the same as per their contract. Of course the price they pay for energy back from the grid may increase, as may costs for carrying debt load, insurance, maintenance, repairs, and other contract obligations.
It remains a business question whether the price over the contract period will cover material costs.
However, the loss of rights and benefits to Environmental Attributes including 'the nature of a source' is an additional and incalculable cost. These rights once transferred cannot be regained even if a project is cancelled for business reasons. As has been noted by one concerned citizen, rights transferred may function as an ongoing lien on property title, as mining rights function in much of the province.
Harper is now formalizing the transfer of rights to US investors through his procurement deal with the US announced last week.
The Joint Statement on Canada-U.S. Agreement on Government Procurement states, "it includes permanent and reciprocal commitments under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) with respect to provincial, territorial and state procurement. Second, the agreement provides for the following reciprocal guarantees of access on a temporary basis:
Harper's procurement deal gives US energy suppliers and their financiers access to provincial and municipal infrastructure, expanding WTO reach into local government procurement, including green energy.
The FIT program forces small energy producers and communities to forfeit their rights to nature, while allowing large Suppliers to retain rights- specifically their Lenders. The OPA is required to enter into agreement with the Lenders associated with suppliers.
Harper is now allowing those Lenders to be US financiers, including those who crashed the economy and required bailouts. With FIT, Green Energy Act, and trade deal provisions, US financiers will obtain provincial, municipal, and community rights to nature.
Harper is trying to do this while parliament is prorogued.
He is a traitor, not a trader. A traitor to residents who want to retain their rights, and rights of the earth.
At the community level we cannot let rights get handed off with the FIT program, at the provincial level we cannot allow provinces to sign any new WTO procurement pact, and at the federal level we must defeat Harper and his outrageous assault on democracy, his repeated attacks on human rights, and his transfer of our legal rights to local and regional ecosystems south.
A Summarizing visual diagram of the [un] FIT transfer of rights is at
http://s995.photobucket.com/albums/af77/thanks_flowchart/Ontario%20%20FI...
[I'm sorry that the linked site has silly ads, but i can't figure out how to copy the diagram directly to this thread. just double click on the hand-drawn diagram at photobucket. thanks]
In Canada financiers and their puppet governments use intricate trails of legal clauses to get landowners and communities to sign off their carbon rights, and rights to nature.
In Papua New Guinea different tactics are used:
"Indigenous leader kidnapped and forced at gunpoint to surrender carbon rights".
http://www.ienearth.org/ (news column at right)
**
It would be useful to access the actual text of the new feed-in-tariff in the UK to see if residents there have to sign off their rights as well. Compare with Germany and elsewhere..
Friends of the Earth seem to have access to the UK FIT documents, but i can't find direct links to the texts. FoE's press release comments on the tariff numbers, but doesn't mention rights transfers. The government Ministry of Energy there appears to sell policy documents...
I read (on Jan. 29) Andrea H.-D.'s and Andrea P.'s ' very good paper on "Green, Decent and Public " Energy
http://canadians.org/energy/documents/climatejustice/green-decent-public... .
I'm going to trust that they and the other good folk in networks referenced therein can make use of notes above to emphasize their concerns regarding the dangers in privatization of energy generation.
i'll also direct enquirers to this rabble link in the meanwhile, as meetings are coming up around these issues locally.
It's important to recognize that because the FIT contracts, definitions and affiliated rules are legal documents referencing the Green Energy Act and amended Acts, the FIT contracts function as Regulations. Drafts of the micro-FIT and larger FIT contracts were available online in Sept. '09. At the time I looked at the micro-FIT draft contract, but neglected to look at the FIT draft for larger contracts until January. It seems no eco-researchers looked at the FIT draft for larger contracts, or if they did, failed to publicize the glaring hypocrisy of forced rights-transfer for small producers while financiers retain rights. The tactic of using contracts instead of traditionally formulated Regulations was successful in avoiding scrutiny.
The FIT contracts and definitions must be examined critically now by eco-researchers.
These regulations/legal contracts subsume rights and benefits to Environmental Attributes, defined as 'THE NATURE OF A SOURCE', to a privacy-protected, undemocratic, unaudited, globally expanding private financial fog that the G20 is allowing to self-regulate in the private interest of the financiers who just a year ago crashed the global economy.
Now we've given the same financial fog legal rights to Nature.
The FIT program contracts and related documents and clauses need to be changed, privatization of energy generation/ distribution/ grid infrastructure/ management/ governance need to be rolled back, and the global financial fog needs to be publicly audited, democratized and cleaned up.
The sooner we start, the better.
Time is short, the river flows on...
The process is important - the process of how to look at Acts of legislation. Any reader can consider legislation. The more rabble readers who try to read legislation directly, the better for participatory democracy.
Acts fit together with Regulations and other Acts, including financial regulation-for-deregulation, and trade deals, like pieces of a puzzle.
Meaning is found in the combination, as well as loopholes, and risks.
___
Current version of Bill 150 "Green Energy Act" that passed last spring:
http://www.ontla.on.ca/bills/bills-files/39_Parliament/Session1/b150ra.pdf
Legislative Acts are interpreted in light of implementing regulations - in this case the microFit and FIT program documents.
Concerns (Very Rough Notes- flags raised in light of regs notes above):
Schedule B (Amendments to Electricity Act '98):
(5) 1. 3 " the smart grid means the advanced information exchange systems and equipment that when utilized together improve
the flexibility, security, reliability, efficiency and safety of the integrated power system and distribution systems,
particularly for the purposes of... (d) supporting other objectives that may be prescribed by regulation"
12.53.0.1 assigning roles and responsibilities re: development, implementation and standardization of the smart grid.
13. "municipal electricity utility" is redefined to include any corporation or other entity through which a municipal board generates electricity.
15. municipality can only do generation itself, without a corporation, if it stays below 10 megawatts or ‘meets the prescribed criteria'.
OPA is referred to as "OPA and the Financial Corporation".
"Distributor' means a person who owns or operates a distribution system"
"A distributor may own and operate a generation facility or an energy storage facility".
[Amendments to section 7]
Incentives and cost recovery for transmitters and distributers.
A distributor is entitled to be compensated for lost revenue resulting from rate reductions provided.
Limits on public powers- restricted ability to make decisions:
16. repealing 96.2: "The Board...shall only consider...the interests of consumers...promotion..."
[what about the broader public and ecology?]
Amendments to Conservation Authority Act: 13.1 : CAs can't refuse approvals "unless necessary to prevent flooding..."
Section 34 Ont. Water Resources Act.- permit or renewable energy approval
[equivalency under the GEEA, fast-tracked, hearings limited to complaints only of serious harm to human health,
serious and irreversible harm to ecology, onus of proof [cost of studies and litigation] on complainant.
Devolved responsibility again: Environmental Commissioner can assign study and reporting.
Sch. G amendments to Env. Protection Act;
Renewable energy approval is the same as a certificate of property use, license.
18. approvals are marketable [ie) carbon offset clearinghouses.]
Locked in Planning Act- 20-50 years land use guarantee for suppliers.
21 : Energy generation (and their financiers) allowed In Provincial Parks with minor conditions.
_________
The most concerning direction is the equivalency given to renewable energy approvals - they are considered as certificates of property use, as license, and are marketable. Through the regulations, in financial trade these approvals become the base currency for hedging and leveraging. Don't forget, the approvals come with Environmental Attributes defined as the nature of an energy source.
In effect, the combination of the Green Energy Act and the FIT regulations hand over the rights and revenues pertaining to the nature of our renewable energy sources to large private Supplier financiers, if we do not keep energy generation supply public.
We can celebrate nature's current, see.
We can uphold the flow as it sweeps out flimsy banks,
depositing the residue on open ground.
We can trust and act in our own fluid and interwoven designs,
creating space for new life to take hold.
Instead, the public purse could be used abundantly and directly on good jobs, public social supports, conserved resources and a prioritized environment. This true 'wealth' retained, evaluated not in dollars but in real counts of human and non-human lives and well-being, is the collateral with which we translate and take back finance.
We are fine ants.
Please note that the definition of Environmental Attributes and rights transferred by small players and kept by the creditors of large players include pollution permits and offset credits.
Handing them the chips for their table games.
Further,
Do public spirited environmentalists think that McGuinty's Green Energy and Green Economy Act helpfully hands all rights to the public OPA? Think again. In the larger FIT contract Section 15.5 (g), the OPA can hand over its obligations and liability to an 'assignee' which is not specified as a public body. That assignee could be a transnational infrastructure financier.
Section 11.3 of same contract states that the OPA shall enter an agreement with a Secured Lender as in Exhibit H, when Secured Lenders are involved in financing a Supplier.
Section 11.2 (d) (e) under Rights and Obligations of Secured Lenders gives financiers the right to foreclose on a Supplier, take of possession of a Supplier's interests, and transfer and securitize these interests.
In other words, if a green supplier finds themselves in financial trouble (maybe because bankers have crashed the market again with their games in the foggy clearinghouses), the bankers are allowed to take suppliers' assets and interests and play some more.
Article 12 of the larger FIT contract allows players to cry 'Discrimination!' if any public body is uppity enough to try writing a law restricting their game. They can scribble in a minor way, within narrow limits as set out in the 'Green Energy and Green Economy Act', but the bankers' rights to dollars can't be touched.
Even audit rights are explicitly limited to what is 'relevant', 'appropriate', only 'relating to this Agreement...reasonably required in comply with its obligations to Government Authority'. ie) not impinging at all on their speculative game.
Under the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services), and in financial services agreements of other multilateral and bilateral deals, these restrictions are 'necessity tests' which limit the ability of governments to regulate in the public interest.
And don't forget, under the Definitions in Appendices, 'Governmental Authority' is defined as any number of entities including unspecified to-be-appointed tribunals and/or whomever the OPA hands over its obligations and liabilities to, as per Section 15 on 'Assignment'.
Then throw Harperite and provincial public-private partnerships for infrastructure, including 'green' infrastructure, into the mix...
But don't worry, the bankers in their clearinghouses will work it all out.
concerns with carbon offset trade and financial derivatives trade at
http://www.rabble.ca/babble/introductions/harper-hides-fraudulent-banking .
Credit Default Swaps are traded in the privately-run 'Clearinghouses'. These are the financial products which caused the financial crash, trade in which is being expanded under Harper, Obama, and the rest of the G20, with more 'oversight' given to the private players themselves, and less public oversight. The public sector is constrained from limiting fraudulent financial trade by a number of factors including clauses in international trade deals protecting the rights of financiers to profit. Privacy laws and trade deal intellectual property rights may be constraining public audits of financial players. Whatever the reason, public audits are not being done.
Credit Default products are swapped, hedged, and speculated upon with other products, in the 'Clearinghouses' which are transparent only to the private players participating in the 'clearinghouses'. This transparency-only-for-private-players is supposed to ensure that swapping of credit and debit products 'balance out' and keep the market 'stable'. This is called 'offsetting'.
At this point, readers are to notice that the language of the disastrous credit default swap and offset market is the same language used for the carbon offset market.
Hopefully readers will also know, from the Copenhagen shenanigans, and outlined in the Copenhagen threads at babble, that the drafts circulated in Copenhagen proposed private carbon market offset 'swaps', in the context of existing international trade deals, with a smoggy 'clearinghouse'.
The model/s give power to the same private financial players and operate/s with the following assumptions;
a) the private players will congenially and cooperatively create and swap many new innovative leveraged financial products to balloon and crash manage our eco/nomic/logic climate for the private benefit of surviving competitors.
b) the credit and debit offset products are based upon valid, reliable, and stable underlying factors like happy exploited populations and a healthy dying planet.
c) the ability of taxpayers to payroll their shenanigans while losing their good jobs, public social supports, resources, and environment is infinite.
An example of this occurring already is Macquarie Bank based in Australia. Macquarie owns the Erie Shores Wind Farm in Ontario, a biogas facility in Quebec, along with a number of hydro installations in Ontario. Through its Capital and Infrastructure and Energy arms, a variety of corporations around the world, it manages financing in carbon markets for oil and gas companies, including Canadian fossil fuel corporations, and packages hedge funds and derivatives for trade. Other financiers are doing the same.
The last time we allowed this kind of bubbling to continue, a catastrophic crash ensued. Shall we allow the same to happen with our alternative energy? Shall we be forced to bail out the financiers yet again, because we don't want to lose our alternative energy? Shall we be forced to cough up untold billions, or more, as the alternative energy market is projected by some to be worth over 20 trillion..?
Instead we can sensibly keep our money in the public realm, use the Bank of Canada to directly fund public clean energy in communities with public money through public infrastructure (not via Harperite/McGuinty public-private partnerships). Instead of having our money disappear into the privacy-protected void, we can keep it public and recycle it fully and directly back to the public/ community purse.
As micro-FIT and community FIT rights are bundled, hedged, leveraged and traded by affiliated Lenders, the 'green' electricity market will bubble and crash if global finance continues in its present 'free trade' state.
As in the '08 crash, many will go bankrupt, lose their assets, and the surviving financiers will pick up foreclosures for a song. Profits and ownership will be consolidated in the hands of a very few.
The way to resist this scenario is to refrain from signing any FIT contracts in their current construction, to audit and control global finance, and to change the terms of trade deals.
Aboriginal/ Community Project Participants are described in Section 9 of The Rules document for the larger FIT Suppliers/ Applicants:
http://fit.powerauthority.on.ca/Storage/98/10781_FIT_Rules_Version_1.2.pdf
Section 9.1 f) on Community Participation Level states that "the Economic Interest of any Person" [Applicant, Supplier, Community Investment Member..."and all those who hold an Economic Interest in such Person"] "shall not count toward the Community Participation Level." [added emphasis].
A distinction is being made between Economic Interests and Community Participation Levels.
In 9.1 "Aboriginal Community" is defined as "A First Nation that is a Band as defined by the Indian Act", the Metis Nation of Ontario, any corporation wholly owned by these, or "a Person, other than a natural person, that is determined by the Government of Ontario for the purposes of the FIT program to represent the collective interests of a community that is composed of Metis or other aboriginal individuals."
A concern is that the collective rights of a community will be subsumed by the Economic Interests of Lenders (whose Rights are entrenched in Section 11 of the FIT Contract) and/or other financiers whose rights are entrenched in trade deals and who are in partnership with the OPA or OPG directly or via other contracts.
Aboriginal and other Communities who participate in FIT contracts may be subjugating the collective rights of their members to affiliated Economic Interests at other levels in the system.
Section 10 of the contract for large FIT Suppliers under Force Majeure allows participating corporations to jam their employees without being liable for losses if there's a strike.
so much for decent 'green' jobs...
Reminder: In the microFIT contract, Section 5.1 Transfer of Rights refers to the Appendix of Definitions on Environmental Attributes. This includes, "c) any and all rights, title, and interest relating to the nature of an energy source...”
The definition also incorporates any 'present or future role of non-government agencies' (ie corporations) internationally.
The section on applicable laws states these transfers of rights are subject to all federal laws, which of course include trade law, and tribunals which are given "Governmental Authority" (Appendix .A Definitions). Corporations partnered with the province or feds, now or in future, would have the rights to onsite environmental attributes, and unelected trade tribunals given governance powers.
Section 10 Termination of the Agreement states you can cancel the agreement with thirty days notice BUT Section 12 on Assignment says the OPA can transfer the rights (which you've transferred to it) to anyone else at any time without your consent. The rights transferred to other parties may remain in force because of law even though you cancel the microFIT contract agreement.
The notes on the micro-FIT contract (Dec. 10/09 version here: http://microfit.powerauthority.on.ca/pdf/microFIT%20contract%20version%201.3%20December%2010_2009.pdf ) are in stark contrast to the FIT contract for larger energy Suppliers:
http://fit.powerauthority.on.ca/Storage/99/10822_FIT_Contract_Version_1.2_Standard_Terms_and_Conditions.pdf
The contract for larger suppliers, the FIT program, includes clauses which allow larger suppliers to retain their rights to Environmental Attributes.
see 2.10 a) last line, rights transfer only apply to an Incremental Project Ratio.
see 2.10 d) "the OPA will permit the Supplier to retain any Regulatory Environmental Attributes..."
Further, the FIT program for large suppliers entrenches their rights, including the right to profit. This fits [sic] with existing trade provisions wherein large corporate entities and financiers can sue governments for regs which limit their profit:
Section six.1 c) reiterates trade law wherein the government can do nothing, including "...Laws and Regulations... that could have an Adverse Material Affect upon the Supplier."
Section 11 secures Lender's Rights.
In section fifteen, large FIT Suppliers' rights are not limited to the contract, but include "any other rights and remedies available at law or in equity". eg. in trade, bilateral, or interprovincial deals.
These are just a few examples in a contract which is rife with entrenchment of the rights of the larger corporate FIT Suppliers.
Thus we have a scenario wherein small residential and farm micro-Fit suppliers give up their rights, title, interest and benefits to environmental attributes and the 'nature of the source', to the OPA or its designated regional agency/corporation to which the OPA can transfer rights. Transferred rights under the micro-FIT contract remain in place even if a micro-FIT contract is cancelled by the supplier.
On the other hand, the large Suppliers participating in the FIT program are given rights, even over governments and any laws and regulations which might have an Adverse Material Affect upon the Supplier (Section Six.)
The micro-FIT and FIT programs function to hand over the rights, title, interest, and benefits of energy generation in the province to large corporate Suppliers, including infrastructure, software, finance, 'the nature of sources', and control under articles therein.
These rights, title, interest and benefits under existing and proposed trade law could be transnational corporate financiers based in the US, EU, or other countries with whom the Harper government is developing deals.
The FIT and micro-FIT programs are a giveaway of Nature and the rights of residents to some of the world's' most destructive and greedy corporations, for their control.
Energy policy would be effectively run by the large global corporations, at the whim of financiers and for their profit. These are the same financiers who have so spectacularly crashed the economy, created climate change, and aren't budging yet from fossil fuels and nuclear. Decision about the 'when' and 'how' of shifts to truly clean power would be in their hands. Even then, any profits would go directly to private back pockets, not recycled to communities.
The FIT and micro-FIT programs, along with interprovincial agreements, should not be allowed to get off the ground in their present form.
The Harper government and it's efforts to further give away public energy, dollars, and rights through procurement deals with the US, EU 'trade', and enforced private partnerships in its infrastructure funding, must be stopped.
Municipal public infrastructure, including clean public energy, can be funded directly through the Bank of Canada far more cheaply than through profiteering intermediary financiers and global corporations. We can keep our energy, our dollars, and our rights.
i had a good fish story to share...
the FIT program is like a worm on a hook.
this small energy-producing fish swims by, grabs FIT and runs, thinking it's on to a good thing.
but when the feedin stops, the line comes up short.
a mystery-market sinker kicks in, along the regulatory lines.
in the boat, a large private fisher leans with the net.
reeled in, FIT to be tied, the fish realizes its own environmental attributes, as well as those of its surroundings, will be scooped and consumed by offshore predators.
so the fish wises up, and snaps the constraining lines.
[edits out offending clauses]
in the ensuing struggle, the boat tips.
the boaters, gone overboard, turn into fish themselves.
all the fish, and fish-friends left onshore, start over on a new plan that's a better FIT.
It's really worth re-reading the Ontario "Green Energy and Green Economy Act 2009"
http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/source/statutes/english/2009/elaws_src_...
in light of the introduction of transfer of rights language in 5.1 pertaining to Environmental Attributes noted in the first post here.
There are clear references to "market members" which may be "corporations" involved in transmission, distribution, and generation, and their shareholders.
I found about thirty or forty clauses that become extremely problematic in the Act when read in light of regulations that allow transfer of "rights ...relating to the nature of an energy source".
Farmers and other concerned citizens can think of what this might mean in terms of rights to geothermal -ie) LAND- 'capacity' ...
p.s. Many farmers and rural dwellers are familiar with technical aspects of the FIT and related programs as the province has been playing around with these issues for many years. It remained to be seen what the next step in the pricing determinations were, and these continue to be problematic.
The introduction of trade related and rights issues related to Environmental Attributes and capacity are new in my understanding. Thus the focus on them here.
Also of concern, the draft Rules for the program, p.15:
http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/fit/Storage/10/10393_microFIT_Rules_Vers...
"40)
Related Products means all capacity products, ancillary services, transmission rights and any other products or services that may be provided by the microFIT Project from time to time, excluding Environmental Attributes produced by the contract facility and any payments under the ecoENERGY for Renewable Power Program, that may be traded or sold in the IESO-Administered Markets or other markets, or otherwise sold, and which shall be deemed to include products and services for which no market may exist, such as capacity".
This clause excludes Environmental Attributes 'produced by the contract facility' but appear to include Environmental Attributes, that is 'rights' that have been transferred to OPA, as per the Draft Contract noted above. The Draft Rules appear to name as 'Products' the Capacity of available sun, wind, or water beyond that which the contract facility is providing. How's that for commodification?
There are two additional concerns;
1) for suppliers/ would-be small-scale generators; the 'guaranteed' price which OPA is to pay the generator is subject to a formula, wherein the definition of one variable (TCP-BD) is missing, see Appendix B in the Draft Contract at:
http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/fit/Storage/10/10394_microFIT_Contract_%...
Prospective small energy producers initially expressed concerns because OPA was only going to 'guarantee' prices for 5 years, whereas producers were to sign a 20-year contract. There was (and likely still is) room for OPA to jam small producers after a few years, either through manipulation of the 'indexed' price paid for energy generated or through hikes in other costs. If a small producer can get the cost of their infrastructure back after a few years, fine, but in most cases it would take 10 years at least. Then if the price ratios are changed significantly, ie) the feed-in starts to feed out, small scale generators could find themselves trapped.
2) They, and the general public, may find the FIT program traps more than mechanical infrastructure, in the context of investment deals like NAFTA, especially when 80% of Ontario's electricity goes cross-border.
"5.1.
Supplier hereby transfers and assigns to, or to the extent transfer or assignment is not permitted, holds in trust for, OPA who thereafter shall retain, all rights, title, and interest in all Environmental Attributes associated with the Facility.
“Environmental Attributes” means the interests or rights arising out of attributes or characteristics relating to the environmental impacts associated with the Facility, now or in the future, and the right to quantify and register these with competent authorities, including: (a) all right, title, interest and benefit in and to any renewable energy certificate, credit, reduction right, offset, allocated pollution right, allowance, emission reduction allowance or allowance set aside or other proprietary or contractual right, whether or not tradeable; (b) rights to any fungible or non-fungible attributes or entitlements relating to environmental impacts, however arising; (c) any and all rights, title and interest relating to the nature of an energy source as may be defined and awarded through applicable laws and regulations or voluntary programs; and (d) all revenues, entitlements, benefits, and other proceeds arising from or related to the foregoing. For greater certainty, in the event that any governmental or non-governmental agency, whether provincial, federal, national or international in scope or authority, creates or sanctions a registry, trading system, credit, offset or other program relating to Environmental Attributes or their equivalent, the term “Environmental Attributes” shall include the rights or benefits created or sanctioned under any such program or programs to the extent available as a result of, or arising from the Facility."
So by signing this Draft Contract, small energy generators are signing over 'proprietary rights' to the 'environmental attributes' of sun, wind, and water as they could be defined at any time in the future, to the OPA.
If the OPA is privatized, or enters a public-private-partnership in infrastructure software management/ metering/ finance/ (think e-health), with a cross-border company triggering NAFTA and investor provisions, are we also further risking the subjugation of nature to trade tribunals and foreign takeover? What if we're in an interprovincial invesment deal with a province who does energy private partnerships?
Lots of questions here...