Several initiatives at the federal and provincial levels are designed to support the growth of renewable energy in Canada, with policies promoting renewable power, heat and fuels.

Federal Initiatives

In early 2007, the current government introduced several programs that support renewable energy deployment. Unfortunately these mostly replace rather than augment those programs put in place by the previous government.

The ecoEnergy for Renewable Power program, administered by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), was announced in January of 2007. It will provide an incentive of one cent per kilowatt hour, for up to 10 years, to eligible projects constructed over the next four years that generate clean electricity from renewable sources. These sources can include wind, small hydro, biomass, solar photovoltaic, geothermal, tidal and wave technologies. $1.48 billion will be allocated to this program.

The ecoENERGY for Renewable Heat program, administered by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), will provide $36 million over four years to increase the adoption of solar thermal and earth energy technologies for water heating and space heating and cooling. The funds are provided for 3 program activities: rebates for the installation of solar thermal technologies in the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors; support for pilot projects with utilities and community energy providers to deploy solar thermal in the residential sector; and building capacity in the solar thermal and earth energy industries. For homeowners, solar water heaters are also eligible for financial support under the Eco-Energy Retrofit Home Improvement Program.

The federal government intends to regulate an average 5% content of renewable fuels in gasoline by 2010. Programs which support this goal include: an exemption of 10 cents per litre from the federal excise tax, as well as contingent loan guarantees for plant financing; the ecoAgriculture Biofuels Capital Initiative (ecoABC), which provides $200 million over 4 years in loans for construction or expansion of transportation biofuel production facilities; and Biofuels Opportunities for Producers Initiative (BOPI), which allocates $20 million towards assisting the agricultural sector with business plans and feasibility studies related to the production of biofuels. Many concerns have been raised about the environmental and social impacts of un-controlled production of bio-fuels. Pembina believes strict criteria need to be in place to ensure these impacts are minimized. [More].

Tax Incentives for Business Investments in Energy Conservation and Renewable Energy are published in a Government of Canada brochure. The government recently decided to remove the size restrictions for PV systems that qualify for these incentives, as well as the restrictions on the type of applications for solar air and water heating systems.

Provincial Initiatives

At the provincial level, several initiatives are being employed to support the growth of renewables. For example Ontario offers a Standard Offer Program, which sets a fixed price (feed-in tariff) for small renewable energy generation projects with the aim of making it easier and more cost effective for businesses to sell renewable power to the provincial grid. Manitoba has set a target of developing 1,000 MW of wind energy over the next decade.

The following table summarizes the targets and initiatives to support renewable power in each province.

There are an increasing array of policies and financial incentives to promote renewable energies at the provincial level.

View Eastern Canada provincial programs
View Central Canada provincial programs
View Western Canada provincial programs

Environment Canada also provides a list of provincial and federal incentives and rebates designed to encourage the use of renewable energy, promote energy efficiency and reduce waste. The Canadian Solar Industries Association (CanSIA) also provides a listing of other federal and provincial programs that support solar systems such as tax exceptions, loan programs and net metering.