Natural Resources Committee on Sept. 27th, 2017

[Patrick Bateman]

The bulk of the jobs are on the technical side of the equation, so engineering, construction, design, and installation.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

They seem to be more shorter period jobs.

[Patrick Bateman]

That's correct. There are jobs associated with operations and maintenance and other....

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Sure.

[Patrick Bateman]

But the majority are in the front end of the project.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

We had a gentleman from Bruce Power here on Monday who said with their organization they have 22,000 indirect and direct jobs associated with their nuclear facility. It was interesting to hear that.

You also said, Mr. Bateman, that the cost of solar is going down. I'm curious as to your explanation why. According to this Globe and Mail article from May 2015, a lot of that has to do with the fact that the solar panels are being made in China, which as we all know has weaker environmental standards, and that the chemicals being used on these panels cannot be recycled, they have to go into the landfill. Basically, it's saying it's not as clean as one would think. Could you maybe clarify that?

[Patrick Bateman]

For sure, and I'd be interested to read the article to have the full background.

The reality of the situation is that with the modules themselves more than 90% of them are recyclable by weight. The large part is aluminum framing and glass, so in reality the waste stream post-manufacturing is highly recyclable. There are some modules that contain very minute amounts of chemicals that require more careful attention. A lot of the manufacturers that have those chemicals in them have direct-to-consumer line of sight for recycling after use.

Over the past few years, due to a variety of different trade cases and other dynamics within Asia, a lot of the manufacturing, not only of solar but of other electronics whether it's TVs or smart phones, has become more diversified. We're seeing more and more solar being manufactured in southeast Asia, for example, and I think we're seeing improvements across all electronics in recycling and environmental standards through innovation and efficiencies. We're seeing fewer and fewer materials used. We would want to see continued improvements within the environmental performance and the manufacturing side. We do have manufacturing capacity in Ontario that is top of the pack for environmental standards, and also the United States as well. But the majority is in Asia, for sure.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

In my area, we have farmland being used for these solar facilities. Basically, to create these solar farms—can I call it a solar farm?

[Patrick Bateman]

Sure.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Concrete needs to be poured into the ground, it needs to be sturdy, there's secured fencing around, cameras, and all that stuff. Basically, the land is useless after the contract's up with the MicroFIT program, unless there's a new program, is that safe to assume?

[Patrick Bateman]

Let me clarify—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Well, you can't really use it for farming again, can you? You can't dig up all that concrete and take the soil away. Is it basically useless then, that land?

[Patrick Bateman]

Solar is a very benign technology environmentally. After 20 to 25 years, in many cases.... I would view the land being in stewardship for 20 or 25 years, and the quality is likely better than it was at the time of installation.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

With all that concrete?

[Patrick Bateman]

Yes. The amount of concrete, in terms of the footprint, is minor. It's not that the proportion of the land would be used for—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I guess that depends on the size of the solar farm.

[Patrick Bateman]

There would be more concrete with a larger solar farm, but proportionately there would be a similar amount just scaled up based on the size. For remediation, we often see people saying to just leave the concrete in there rather than take it away because it will cause more environmental damage by removing it than otherwise.

I'd love to invite the members of the committee to visit a solar farm in June or July, and you would be amazed at the biodiversity that is there. I have some great examples that I'll provide via the clerk later on about a solar farm owned by Enbridge in Sarnia, and the wildlife that live there is really incredible. I think there obviously needs to be responsible operations, maintenance, and development activities but, for the most part, there is opportunity to enhance biodiversity as opposed to environmental degradation.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Metcalfe, I have a question for you. I'm just going to try to squeeze one more in for Mr. Bateman, and I will hopefully get to you.

[Malcolm Metcalfe]

Okay.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Bateman, according to the independent electricity system operator on the state of the electricity system at 10-year review, the Province of Ontario is a net exporter of electricity. The excess electricity is sold, in many cases to competing states at pennies on the dollar, because of the Green Energy Act.

I also took the opportunity to look at a briefing you did on YouTube where you are talking to people from Alberta in 2016, and you are discussing the benefits of wind and solar. I was struck by one of your responses to a question on why rural Ontarians are paying more than urban Ontarians and—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Shannon Stubbs]

You are over time. Maybe there will be an opportunity for a follow-up.

Mr. Weir.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Well, Mr. Metcalfe keeps getting cut off or excluded, so I'm going to try to remedy that by directing my first question to him.

Mr. Metcalfe, you mentioned the potential of interties to connect the hydro storage capacity that exists in Quebec, Manitoba, and B.C. to other provinces. Coming from Saskatchewan, I'm particularly interested in the possibility for more interties with Manitoba as a way of supporting more generation of intermittent electricity in Saskatchewan. I wonder if you could comment on that.

[Malcolm Metcalfe]

Saskatchewan has a largely thermally based system. If you run it at a constant load, it's reasonably efficient. But if you run it up and down—which they have to do in order to match the load because the generation always has to be the same as the amount of load—it becomes much less efficient. Now if you had a heavy connection.... Saskatchewan has a very small tie with Alberta and Manitoba, but very little else. If one were to connect and do some sort of deal with Manitoba Hydro and allow them to operate their existing generation at a constant level and then take up any swings that occur as a result of adding solar or wind, then the whole system would run more efficiently. I have very strong beliefs that this would be a very good thing to do.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Okay, excellent.

Now, in northern Saskatchewan there is also the potential for large-scale hydro. For example, in the 1970s the government of Allan Blakeney explored the Wintego dam project. There are obviously pros and cons to any major project, but if Saskatchewan had the choice between investing in greater interties with Manitoba versus developing more large-scale hydro in our own province, what would you recommend?

[Malcolm Metcalfe]

How far north is it?