Towers of Ontario Steel Arrive At Essex Wind Farm

Expected to be online by mid-2011, the wind farm will produce 49 megawatts of clean, wind energy, enough to power well over 16,000 homes or a city the size of Goderich. This project is creating 126 new jobs in Essex County.

Ontario’s steel industry is also benefiting from the growing clean energy economy as made-in-Ontario steel is used to build wind turbines for projects like this. The Pointe-aux-Roches project used approximately 4,600 metric tonnes of steel plates from Essar Steel Algoma Inc. in Sault Ste. Marie, supporting even more Ontario jobs.

Ontario’s clean energy plan is getting Ontario off dirty, smog-producing coal and on to cleaner energy sources like wind, solar and bio-energy. The plan is making Ontario a global clean energy leader, sparking a new industry and thousands of new, good jobs in Ontario. The plan also includes help for families with the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit that will take 10 per cent off electricity bills every month.

In the last year, over $9 billion in private sector investment has been committed to clean energy projects in Ontario, creating an estimated 20,000 new jobs.

In 2003, Ontario had 19 dirty polluting-coal units and just ten wind turbines; today, the province has over 700 new wind turbines and by 2014 all coal units will be closed.

On November 23, Ontario published the updated long-term energy plan, Building Our Clean Energy Future, which calls for increasing Ontario’s power supply coming from clean, renewable sources to 13 per cent by 2018, up from 3 per cent today.

Ontario is helping families with the costs of turning on more wind power and turning off dirty smog-producing coal plants through the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit, which will take 10 per cent off electricity bills.

www.mei.gov.on.ca/en/