Increased community input may decrease wind power conflicts
Windmill projects consistently have been faced with pushback from many opposition groups
As the province finalizes its next longterm energy plan, researchers from Western University have some advice to help smooth the path to future wind energy developments: make sure communities are engaged from the very start.
Community ownership should be mandatory, said Emmanuel Songsore, the first author of an academic paper published earlier this month in the journal Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space.
While that ownership should include a financial stake in renewable energy projects, it’s about more than money. Communities should feel a sense of ownership as well, Songsore said.
They need to feel like their voices are heard throughout the planning process, including decisions about windmill sites, he said.
Wind development in Ontario has faced pushback in many communities since the 2009 Green Energy and Green Economy Act took away municipal planning powers over renewable energy in an effort to speed development.
Though Songsore’s paper notes the act tried to promote community-led projects with higher incentives, some of the eight developers Songsore interviewed acknowledged community involvement is lacking.
One said he agreed with the anti-wind community that ‘ “real community engagement’ was nonexistent,” Songsore and his co-authors wrote.
Gideon Forman, a climate change policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation, agrees meaningful community engagement is “crucial” and that it has the potential to reduce conflicts around development. There’s “strong evidence” from the European experience that when communities are actively engaged, the conversation shifts from “if” to “how,” said Tim Gray, the executive director of Environmental Defence.
But Forman and Gray both raised concerns about giving communities a veto over renewable energy projects in the face of climate change.
“I would really hate to see resistance to windmills that isn’t based on science,” said Gray, noting there are legitimate environmental concerns including the potential impact on birds that need to be considered.
“While there’s controversy and some conflicts and pushback against renewables, there’s also a silent majority out there that is very supportive,” Forman said.
An EKOS poll conducted for Environmental Defence in 2016 found 81per cent of respondents supported more renewable energy development in Ontario.
In Dutton Dunwich, where the municipality is fighting to stop a proposed wind energy development, Mayor Cameron McWilliam said he wants to see renewable energy projects go through the same municipal process as other developments — though he’s not sure it would have resulted in support from his community.
“My guess is in Germany not all the communities bought into renewable energy, wind projects, but they have a lot higher success rate because they had communities engaged from the very beginning before any approvals happened,” he said.
The Independent Electricity Sys- tem Operator awarded Invenergy a power contract in 2016 for a close to 60 MW wind development despite noting the project did not have community support.
McWilliam said the community — which voted against the project by 84 per cent in a referendum that had a 50 per cent voter turnout — wasn’t involved in site decisions and the company didn’t engage with people’s concerns during the first public meeting in the spring.
Invenery’s vice-president of renewable development James Murphy, meanwhile, said the company has gone “above and beyond” in trying to engage the community.
Murphy also noted that they have more than 100 families participating in the project and there is a local co-operative looking to partner.
All developers, though, could probably support Songsore’s conclusions Murphy said, but he doesn’t see it as a “panacea” for addressing wind resistance.
Jane Wilson, the president of Wind Concerns Ontario, one of the main opposition groups, said she wants to see better site studies, cost-benefit analyses and a full discussion of any community concerns moving forward.
“We don’t have any of that right now,” she said.
But regardless of the regulatory requirements, developers should engage better with communities, responding fully to questions and concerns that may be raised, she added.
While renewable energy development is on hold for the foreseeable future, James Berry, a spokesperson for the Minister of Energy, said “we know that when municipalities play an active role in the renewable energy development process, they help to ensure that renewable energy projects meet local needs.”
Ontario’s next Long Term Energy Plan is expected to be released later this year.
“The long-term energy planning process will ensure that there is an adequate supply of clean, reliable power to meet the needs of the province,” Berry said.