Natural Resources Committee on May 28th, 2007

[Christian Vachon]

It is true that vacuum tubes are not the most cost-effective technology per square metre. There was a peak period in the 1980s, but since the technology was quite expensive, it fell into complete disuse once the grants ran out.

The Government of Canada put all its eggs into one basket—Solarwall, a solar heating system. There are about five or six different technologies available for heating air. One of them was really favoured—I believe several million dollars were invested in it—and it is controlled by a company that really did not break through into the market. So I do not think the government can do anything about this.

However, it could accept other technologies more easily and stop putting all its eggs into the same basket. I think that would be good for the other manufacturers and would allow them to break into the market much more easily.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

What needs to be done to encourage the government to diversify and invest in systems other than Solarwall?

[Christian Vachon]

In 1998, the Canadian government took part in a task force with the International Energy Agency. A study was done of the six existing technologies for solar collectors. We were involved in that and efficiency curves were developed for each collector, among other things.

Solarwall was not the most efficient system nor the least efficient one. It fell somewhere in the middle. Then programs such as RETScreen International, Solar Air Heating Project Analysis Training Module and SWift were established. They're available throughout the world, but they do not include this technology. That was a very good idea, a very good product, but we made the mistake of promoting this technology only, and of disregarding all the others. As a result, solar space heating did not take off as we would have liked.

So the time has really come to go back to the work the International Energy Agency was involved in, to look at what is available and to incorporate it as quickly as possible into all our programs.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

So you think this could be done right away.

[Christian Vachon]

Absolutely. I have been making this point forcefully for three or four years.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

If I understand correctly, if we calculate the cost of this type of heating in kilowatt hours, it is less expensive than the electricity we buy.

[Christian Vachon]

Exactly. If Natural Resources Canada's method is used, where energy is produced by air solar collectors, which you talked about, the cost is 3¢ per kilowatt/hour. That is much below the cost of electricity, gas, propane and oil in Canada.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

You talked about the fact that solar energy could be incorporated more easily at the local level, since there is no main plant distributing electricity. But would there not be problems within the network because of the fact that electricity is produced only during the day, when the sun is out, and not during the evening?

[Christian Vachon]

That does not cause any problem. This is done everywhere, including Germany. It is very easy, technically speaking, to incorporate this electricity into the grid. When solar energy is being produced, dams, nuclear power plants and coal-fired plants produce less energy. There's simply no technical problem involved in doing this. It can be done now.

There will be no problem if we introduce legislation whereby consumers who decide to use solar energy will get a return on their investment in the form of solar kilowatt/hours. There will be a leverage effect in the market. This will be done automatically, as happened in a number of European countries in particular.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Ouellet.

Ms. Bell.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation. It's good to see you here again.

You were talking about other European countries. I was looking at your grid showing that they are using more solar. Are they using more per capita than we are in Canada? I would imagine that they are.

[Christian Vachon]

Is that more in Canada than in other countries?

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

No, in the European countries on your grid, they are using much more per capita.

[Christian Vachon]

Yes. We are away behind, definitely.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

We're talking in Canada about reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, and European countries are much further ahead in that respect as well. Given that they're using more per capita, do you think their reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is a result of their using more solar energy than fossil fuel energy?

[Christian Vachon]

Yes, definitely. Not all their greenhouse gas emission reductions have been reached with the implementation of solar, but solar was part of the mix of increased energy efficiency, with more energy coming from biomass, wind, geothermal, and of course solar, both thermal and photovoltaic. It is quite clear.

They say that in Germany, for example, one square metre of installed solar panel equals 800 litres of oil per year. You can see that on solarbusiness.de; it's a very interesting site on which to have fun. It's a country that has less sun than we have. It's one of the reasons they have reached their targets in some cases.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

When asked what you would do, given the hypothetical scenario—or maybe not so hypothetical—that you were the Minister of Natural Resources, you said you would put more investment into solar. Have you seen an increase in the investment in solar in recent years?

Also, given that the federal government has introduced its ecoENERGY program, I'm wondering whether it is in any way going to get people more involved in using solar.

[Christian Vachon]

When I started in the business about 10 years ago, there was not much interest from industry, from people who own buildings, to go solar. As we have now reached that critical mass, and word of mouth is passed around, and people have been satisfied with their systems, they are becoming more and more interested. The government program at the time helped make that happen.

Now I would say that people want solar energy more than the government does. That really is my perception. I hear every day, for example, on the residential level, “There is nothing available right now; can we do something?” There is a 10-year payback, they are told. “Well, government should help.”

In industry it's the same. People know about it now because of the government programs. I think the government programs that have been reinstated, such as ecoENERGY right now, have based themselves on the old REDI program. I think there should be more funds and more promotion and there should be easier access to all the manufacturers to make the technology proliferate. It should be pushed more, and certainly not interrupted the way it was.

When I was here last June I said, please, don't interrupt the program. It was interrupted, and it causes hiccups in the market. Maybe from your side it's hard to see the consequences, but it creates hiccups and distortions in the market. Right now we're grappling with this.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

I have one last quick question.

You said that there are 4,000 jobs for 1,000 gigawatt hours of electricity created. Are those long-term jobs or short-term--for example, in just building the product, or is it installation and maintenance and all that? If we were to increase our use of solar energy, I wonder what kind of job creation we could see in that.

[Christian Vachon]

When you produce a gigawatt hour of energy with solar, you have to produce a new panel; you don't have to burn more fuel. You don't add a job by adding nuclear nuggets or more coal into your plant. The plant has been built. If you want to add capacity with solar, you want to have more panels. Having more panels involves more manufacturing. It's more labour intensive. Of course, if we had more solar technology we would create more jobs, just as I showed for Germany. They probably surprised themselves at how many jobs it creates.

So yes, we would benefit from that too, definitely.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Would the price per gigawatt hour increase because it's more labour intensive? I'm just curious to know if--

[Christian Vachon]

No, it's the opposite. You have economies of scale. The more we produce, the larger the industry, the lower the cost.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

We're not going to get a second round, so you'd better take it now.