Canada's cutting-edge energy model

The electricity-generating potential of the island's greatest energy resource – the wind – was recognized decades ago, and in 1980 Canada built its national wind test center on the island's northwestern tip. When the provincial government adopted its renewable energy strategy in 2004, expanding wind power was the first priority.

Two years later, three new wind farms are nearing completion – two built by a private firm, the other by the public utility, PEI Energy Corp. When completed in the coming months, wind will provide 15 percent of PEI's electricity, reducing the province's carbon dioxide emissions by 90,000 tons each year. The island's overall wind potential is about five times that, according to the government.

The government is working on a range of incentives for a range of potential wind farm owners including guaranteed purchase prices for excess electricity fed back to the electricity grid by small farms owned by cooperatives, farmers, and small businessmen.

To convert some of that wind to other uses, PEI Energy Corp. and Ontario's Hydrogenics Corp. are overseeing the creation of a $10.3 million "wind-hydrogen village" at North Cape. The project, to be completed in 2008, will use energy from turbines of the Canadian wind test site to split hydrogen from water, store it in special tanks, and use it to power fuel cells.

When the wind isn't blowing, the fuel cells will be used to power area buildings, eventually to include the entire hamlet of Sea Cow Pond. Ultimately three hydrogen fueling stations are expected to be built – located to allow full island-wide coverage – serving three hydrogen-powered busses, a cargo truck, and an excursion boat.

"Hydrogen is a wonderful means of capturing natural energy sources and storing them for use in other applications," says Harvey Silverstein, a Halifax-based hydrogen economy consultant who was an advisor for the project. "You can produce a fuel that's 100 percent pollution free."

It is, however, a demonstration project, and the fuel cells will have little impact in terms of meeting PEI's 2016 energy target, particularly in regards to transportation, which accounts for about 40 percent of the island's energy consumption. Petroleum will clearly remain the primary fuel source for most vehicles, but Ballem hopes to supplement it with ethanol made from local sugar beets at a $2 million plant now being built by a local company. (Automobiles can burn gas mixtures containing 10 percent ethanol without modifications.)

Other plans include the construction of a biomass plant that will burn wood wastes from provincial forests, and treating used cooking oil and other waste fats so they can be used to power diesel-engine tractors.

"If they can make this strategy work, it will create a good blueprint for other places and countries to look at," says Jeff Deyette, an energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Mass.

"It's the kind of leadership that's needed both here in the US and in Canada to move clean energy forward."

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