Up for the challenge: Canada’s wind, solar and energy storage industries
The wind energy, solar energy and energy-storage industries are eager to start building and delivering the significant new capacity required to enable Canada to achieve its net-zero goal. These industries have a key role in ensuring a responsible and sustainable energy transition.
As new capacity is built throughout Canada, it will be important to ensure community support and customer satisfaction, create economic advantages for Canada and its communities, and contribute to sustainability and environmental protection.
CanREA calls for the industry to become even more:
Responsible, earning community support and customer satisfaction:
- All new wind, solar and energy-storage projects need a strong base of community support and satisfied customers.
- Every community is unique. Understanding and addressing community perspectives requires early, meaningful and sustained community engagement.
- The number of wind, solar and energy-storage projects developed in partnership with Indigenous communities is growing rapidly.
Beneficial, providing economic opportunities for Canadian communities:
- As per CanREA’s illustrative scenario the new wind and solar energy build needed to support Canada’s net-zero objectives would result in $8 billion in investment and 28,000 direct and indirect person years of employment annually.
- A 100 MW wind energy project can deliver $1 million in property tax payments and $500,000 in lease payments to landowners on an annual basis.
- Clean-energy projects (the vast majority of which are renewable-energy projects) are poised to provide $1.5 billion in Indigenous employment and contracting income over the next 10 years.
Sustainable, helping to protect the environment:
- The generation of electricity through wind and solar energy does not emit greenhouse gases or air pollutants, consume large quantities of freshwater, or generate toxic, hazardous or radioactive waste.
- The wind, solar and energy-storage industries must go beyond simple compliance with environmental regulations, and proactively seek to find ways to enhance environmental sustainability and responsibility throughout the product and project lifecycle.
- CanREA supports the development of industry best practices, guidelines and reports, capacity building and information sharing, and hosts Canada’s largest facility operations event on an annual basis.