Thursday, October 28, 2010

Wind power development in Canada - Overview

Wind power development may be slowing down in United States and EU but in Canada wind power is looking better than ever, and Canada is well on the right track to achieve a year of the record growth. Demand for wind power in Canada is bigger than ever with many new wind farms spreading across the country.

According to the latest reports from the Canadian Wind Energy Association, over 1,000 megawatts of new wind energy capacity is expected to be installed in Canada in 2011, so far the record year has been 2009 with the total installed wind power capacity of 950 megawatts.

Such strong development of wind power will not only bring many environmental but also many economic benefits for Canadians, for instance many new well payed green jobs.

Many new wind energy projects have been approved in the last couple of months, and more than 6,000 megawatts of new wind power capacity is expected to be installed over the next five years across the Canada.

Canada currently has around 3500 MW of installed wind power capacity, and by the end of this year this number should increase to more than 4000 MW, meaning that by the end of this year Canada will have enough wind capacity to provide power for close to 1,5 million homes.

It also has to be said that every Canadian province is generating at least some wind power, and that the leading provinces in wind power development are Quebec and Ontario. Over the next five years Quebec should add 3000 megawatts of new wind power capacity, and Ontario 1500 MW. This, together with new wind projects in other provinces should increase the share of wind power in Canada's total energy demand to 5% by the 2015. Currently, this percentage is at about 1,5 percent.

A supportive government policy is one of the main factors that have laid the foundations for this strong development of Canadian wind power sector. Canadians want more clean environmentally friendly energy sources instead of fossil fuels, and wind power may turn out to be a main driving force that will turn Canada into clean energy economy.

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