Power change
Energy
From F1 rector of the climate change program with Pollution Probe.
“ This is new, and it’s still to be tried to see what consumer interest will be, but it is a way for consumers to make a statement,” said Pattenden.
“ What’s important is that there be options for consumers to get engaged, because we need to develop wind power and small hydro and solar to their maximum potential if we’re going to deal with climate change and smog.”
Nearly four in 10 Canadians believe their health has been adversely affected by air pollution and more than 60 per cent identify particulates and emissions as the most important environmental issue facing Canada, according to a recent survey of 2,500 Canadians conducted by IBM Business Consulting Services. The survey also found that 29 per cent belonged to or donated to an environmental organization.
“ There are a tonne of both environmental and health groups with hundreds of thousands of members in Ontario that are pent up and looking for an option, looking for a tangible way to make a difference,” said Heintzman.
Energy Minister Dwight Duncan told the Toronto Star last month that most consumers understand that relying less on coal and nuclear power comes at a price. “ I think people are prepared to pay a higher price for clean energy,” he said.
Kiessling, who formed Bullfrog just over a year ago, is a University of Waterloo graduate who cofounded a software company in 1989 that came to be known as Sitraka Inc. It grew to become one of the country’s largest selffinanced software companies. The tech entrepreneur cashed out big in 2001 after selling Sitraka to a California- based company for $ 52 million ( U. S.).
“ I started then to think about what I call double- bottom line opportunities; companies that can be both good financially and good for the environment,” Kiessling said. “ Through that we started looking at the alternative energy production market in Ontario.” He realized there was a major gap between producers that wanted to build new green production and consumers who were willing to pay more to tap green energy.
“ There was nobody connecting the two,” he said. “Consumer choice is a very powerful force, and today there is no choice for green electricity for residential consumers in Ontario. We’re enabling people by supplying that choice.” He emphasized that consumers who switch will get a bill from Bullfrog but still get their electricity from the provincial grid, meaning no change in reliability. What Bullfrog does is make sure the money its customers pay goes toward more green power production that over time displaces dirty power on the grid. Thomas Homer- Dixon, director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto, will be one of the first to make that choice. The university professor, who spends much of his time researching the complex challenges of creating sustainable societies, plans to be one of the first 100 “ prominent” Ontarians to sign up with Bullfrog.
“ I think it’s a terrific idea,” he said, explaining that switching from Toronto Hydro is as easy as changing long- distance or natural gas providers, and it can all be done online on Bullfrog’s website. “ The point over time is to show there’s significant demand out there that provides an incentive to supply ( green power).”
Ontario Power Generation has a program through which it sells green power at a premium to large industrial and corporate customers, such as the Royal Bank of Canada or Hudson’s Bay Co., but the provincial power giant does not sell directly to residential consumers or small and medium- sized businesses that may want to market themselves as “ eco- friendly.”
Kiessling said the formal launch of Bullfrog later this month will include the announcement of new green- production facilities being built specifically to serve its customers, as well as well- known businesses and organizations that have signed up to be “ Bullfrogpowered.”
His hope is that the company will become an agent of change. “ Our goal is to build a business that causes a lot of green production to get built, to displace a lot of dirty production out there, and to do that in an economically viable, sustainable way,” he said. On top of that, the company plans to donate 10 per cent of its founders’ equity and 10 per cent of profits to organizations in the environmental and health movement.