Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the standing committee. It’s an honour to be speaking to you from the deep south of Canada.
My topic today is the innovation of renewable energy biogas, which is generated through anaerobic digestion. Pelee Hydroponics is a 6.5-acre greenhouse farm producing organic tomatoes. It hosts Seacliff Energy, the farm-based anaerobic digester that is designed to handle a large number of different solid and liquid organic waste materials.
I'll answer the questions that were provided to me.
First, what is the current status of the research, innovation, and technology development for biogas? Most of the research and the innovation and technology are currently taking place in Europe. Aggressive feed-in tariff rates and premiums have driven the uptake of that technology.
Biogas development in Canada can be described as a series of individual achievements. The Biogas Association, an Ontario association of biogas owners, operators, and stakeholders, has been a leader in the research, as well as in assisting in the development of a biogas safety code.
Aided by OMAFRA, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Ontario has led the charge in Canadian farm biogas. There are 30 farm-based operational biogas plants in Ontario and a few in Quebec, British Columbia, and the western and Atlantic provinces. Biogas is also a name given to landfill gas and sewer gas from water treatment plants.
Research, innovation, and technology remain a priority for biogas. The innovation of a mutually beneficial relationship between urban and rural Canada can evolve where rural areas can close the loop of field to food to field with management solutions to organic waste through renewable energy.
Second, how do we compare to other countries? Canada is far behind Germany in the production of biogas. There are 7,200 biogas plants in Germany alone, in a country the size and with the population of Ontario. We can build on and improve on European models. Most of the specialized equipment for biogas comes from Europe, but we have the skills and infrastructure to manufacture that equipment in Canada. Consistent support of biogas will open the doors to manufacturing, exporting, and job creation. A huge opportunity exists to capitalize on organic waste treatment and manure treatment as well, while reaping environmental and economic benefits.
Third, what are the most promising innovative technologies? Biogas production in itself is a promising, innovative, and evolving technology, with several applications to energy markets: heat, power, transportation fuel, gas to grid, and fertilizer. Technology to enable dispatchable biogas-generated electricity can offer a solution to aging electricity grids.
Fourth, what are the barriers and the main challenges? They are: regulation; policy, which can address economics; bureaucracy; and process. A Canadian biogas strategy is needed, a policy with targets and initiatives. There’s a need for a centralized body to collect and integrate sector knowledge for proponents, ministries, government agencies, financers, and consumers. One of the barriers is that the absence of a long-term Canadian history of successful biogas plants promotes a perception of higher risk, and that translates into higher associated capital costs.
Fifth, what role can Canada play? It can develop a Canadian biogas strategy with policies, targets, and initiatives. We can look to Europe for aggressive and sustainable biogas blueprints. Canada can incent the production on the back end, and not so much the capital costs, which will enable biogas investment and attract development.
Again, we can adapt variations of the European models for price-adders for innovation, efficiency, and environmental attributes. We can establish a central agency to develop a long-term policy to collect and standardize that information and provide assistance to the ministries, proponents, and financers, and the education of consumers.
Funding is desperately needed for existing associations, like the Biogas Association in Ontario. It has the experience and framework in place to mentor a central agency. This voice of biogas currently assists biogas stakeholders nationally and is poised to transition to a national agency.
We need to enable access to the grid. The dispatchable baseload power and local potential of renewable energy, again, can benefit those aging grids.
The government could provide grandfather incentives to existing plants and keep them on the same competitive level.
We need specific biogas research funding for entities, such as the University of Guelph, Ridgetown campus, which has a demonstration anaerobic digester. I know that universities across the country are researching biogas anaerobic digestion.
We need to target agriculture for this—farmers understand sustainability—and consider biogas incentives and investment as an investment in job creation, investment attraction, and ultimately tax revenue.
So in the words of Norma McDonald, past-president of the American Biogas Council, “Let's not waste our waste.”, and I would add to that, let's stop wasting our waste.
Thank you for the opportunity.