NDP Leader Howard Hampton will reverse four lost years of misguided McGuinty Liberal hydro policies with a Green Lights electricity plan that will deliver cheaper and cleaner electricity than McGuinty’s $40-billion nuclear scheme.

The NDP plan means aggressive action to reduce hydro consumption, a significant boost in clean renewable power like wind, solar and water power, and cutting duplication and waste within Ontario’s out-of-control hydro bureaucracies. It will create 25,000 good-paying jobs and give Ontario the electricity it needs to shut down the Nanticoke coal plant by 2011 and halt plans for new nuclear plants.

Dalton McGuinty’s record of letting down today’s working families

• Dalton McGuinty’s misguided hydro policies and broken promises have meant skyrocketing prices, more smog, more greenhouse gases and the threat of more nuclear plants for today’s working families.

• He promised to hold the line on hydro rates through 2006 then raised them weeks after taking office.

• He promised to shut Nanticoke by 2007 ‘come hell or high water’ and it’s still running.

• He promised to reduce electricity consumption by 10 per cent then he scrapped energy efficiency incentives and now we’re setting records for hydro consumption.

• He promised he wouldn’t build new nuclear plants and now he’s not only charging ahead with a $40-billion nuclear megascheme, he’s changed Ontario’s environmental laws so the plan won’t face any scrutiny.

Howard Hampton’s Green Lights electricity plan

Get aggressive with energy efficiency and conservation, saving 1,700 megawatts of power by the end of 2012. Measures will include:
• A Manitoba style grant/loan energy retrofit program that will provide 150,000 homeowners with the funds to retrofit their homes, a ten-fold increase over the current McGuinty plan.
• New measures include subsidies to homeowners to encourage the installation of 100,000 solar water heaters in homes by 2012.
• Implementing Energuide 80 building code standards by 2009.
• Making Energy Star appliance standards mandatory by 2009.
• Continuing financial incentives for energy efficient appliances.

Get serious about demand management, with a massive expansion of Peaksaver peak demand reduction technology and other demand reduction measures, saving 2,500 megawatts by end of 2012. Measures will include:
• Peaksaver is a proven success at reducing energy demand when needed. The Peaksaver pilot program attracted six participants and yielded some 183 megawatts of reductions when the system most needed it, but barely 5 per cent of Ontario homes are using the technology.
• Ontario’s NDP will get serious about promoting and expanding the use of Peaksaver. By offering rebates of up to $100 to homeowners and $250 to small business, Ontario’s NDP will ensure 50 per cent of single family homes and one third of small businesses will be enrolled by 2012.
• The NDP will also enhance incentives that will result in a significant expansion of demand reduction programs for commercial and industrial businesses.

A significant expansion of industrial co-generation facilities through the appointment of a long-delayed co-generation facilitator and enhanced incentives to industrial co-generation plants.

NOTE: The McGuinty Liberals’ conservation and demand response (CDM) targets are all significantly below the NDP’s. In comparison with a Liberal target of only 3,800 megawatts by 2015, the NDP’s conservation and demand response target for 2012 is 5,150 megawatts.

NDP Proposed Peak Demand Savings(MW) Peak (MW) 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Conservation 350 350 350 350 350
Energy Efficiency 300 800 1,100 1,400 1,700
Demand Management 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500
Fuel Switching 60 100 150 175 200
Co-generation 150 275 310 340 400
Total 1,360 2,525 3,410 4,265 5,150

Invest in renewables. A substantial increase in clean, renewable power such as wind, solar and water power more than what is now planned by the McGuinty government, generating 3,700 megawatts of green power by 2012.
• Dalton McGuinty is already behind his target of 2,700 megawatts
by 2010.
• A more aggressive approach to generating more water power in Northern Ontario, and importing clean water power from Manitoba
and Quebec.

Create green jobs. The Green Lights Plan will create up to 158,000 jobs – by investing in job-creating efficiency measures. Over four years Ontario’s NDP will move away from expensive unreliable nuclear power and redirect $1.1 billion away from McGuinty’s interval meter scheme and re-invest that money in proven efficiency measures and clean green renewable energy. The Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development says for every million dollars invested, an average 36.3 jobs are created in the energy efficiency sector, 12.2 jobs in the renewable energy sector, and only 7.3 jobs in the development of conventional energy.

Coal phase-out. Ontario’s NDP will close Ontario’s coal-fired plants by the following dates: The Nanticoke coal plant closed by the end of 2011, the Lambton coal plant by the end of 2012 and operations at the two northern coal plants gradually reduced and used as insurance in the event of interruptions in power from cleaner sources until they are closed in 2014.

No new nuclear plants. We would ensure there would be no approval of proposed nuclear refurbishments until after the completion of a system-wide Environmental Assessment (EA). New nuclear projects would not be included in any proposed plan an NDP government would submit to the EA. Moreover, any final decisions regarding nuclear refurbishments would be made within the context of a policy of significantly reducing Ontario’s reliance on nuclear energy and aggressively looking for alternatives – a policy that the NDP believes is not just feasible but also environmentally necessary.

Greater accountability. We will end outrageous senior executive salaries at hydro related agencies and a consolidation of selected hydro agencies to end duplication to save money and keep hydro rates down. Amongst the first agencies to be consolidated would be the IESO and the OPA.