Canadian Energy Law : Lawyers & Attorneys for Environmental Energy Law

Glenn Zacher and Patrick G. Duffy

In the past year, the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) has issued two important decisions that provide clarity to condominium developers and landlords in Ontario on their rights to sub-meter individual units in their buildings using smart meters. As discussed below, there is also new legislation concerning smart sub-metering on the horizon that will be of interest to developers and landlords in Ontario.

At the core of this issue are the smart-metering provisions of the Electricity Act, 1998 and the related regulations, in particular Ontario Regulation 442/07. Regulation 442/07 required all new condominium buildings constructed in Ontario after August 1, 2007 to include a smart meter for each unit. Under the regulation, a condominium developer has the choice whether to have individual units metered directly by the local distributor, or to have the distributor provide a bulk interval meter for the building while having individual units sub-metered by an alternate provider. The smart sub-metering provider must be licenced by the OEB and comply with the requirements of the OEB's Smart Sub-Metering Code. Existing condominium buildings are not required to install smart meters for each unit, but can do so at the option of the condominium corporation and also enjoy the right to use the services of a licenced smart sub-metering provider.

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Ruth Elnekave

On April 10, 2010, the Government of Canada published details of previously announced renewable fuel regulations under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999. The proposed regulations are aimed at fulfilling two commitments under the Government's Renewable Fuels Strategy: the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from liquid petroleum fuels and encouraging increased demand for renewable fuels in Canada. The proposed regulations target "primary suppliers" (i.e. producers and importers of gasoline, diesel fuel or heating distillate oil), imposing an annual average 5% renewable content in gasoline starting in September 2010, and a 2% renewable content in diesel fuel and heating oil by 2011. When the 2% requirement comes into force depends on the results of technical feasibility testing for renewable diesel fuel under a range of Canadian conditions.

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Benjamin S. P. Hudy and Lisa A. McDowell

In 2009, in the wake of a changing economy, a slowdown in oil and gas well drilling and a new but much criticized royalty regime, the Government of Alberta launched a competitiveness review (the Review) with a focus on upstream natural gas and conventional oil development. The results of this Review and the Government of Alberta's policy response were released on March 11, 2010 in its publication Energizing Investment - A Framework to Improve Alberta's Natural Gas and Conventional Oil Competitiveness (the Competitiveness Framework).

By comparing Alberta's investment competitiveness with other key jurisdictions, namely British Columbia and Saskatchewan in Canada and Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Wyoming in the United States, the Review revealed that, though still a dominant player in the energy business, Alberta has lost competitive ground in relation to its peers in the conventional oil and gas industry. To attempt to secure Alberta's competitive future in conventional oil and gas, the Competitive Framework identifies proposed actions by the Government of Alberta in a few key areas, the most significant of which appear to be royalty adjustments and regulatory process improvements.

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Alison Forbes

Although many kinks and details in the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) program continue to be ironed out, more than six hundred developers of renewable energy generation facilities have been awarded FIT contracts since early March, representing approximately 2600 MW in generation capacity. The impressive uptake of the program seems to have come as a surprise to both the OPA and the provincial government, although the economics of developing renewable-energy generation projects under the FIT program was no secret among developers.

Capacity allocation exempt facilities

The OPA announced the first tranche of FIT contracts on March 10 - more than five hundred FIT contracts were offered to developers of projects with a generation capacity of less than 500 kWs. These "Capacity Allocation Exempt" (CAE) facilities represent a total of 112 MWs of generation capacity and are largely comprised of rooftop solar projects. CAE facilities are not required to provide initial application security upon the submission of an application under the FIT program, and are exempt from the OPA's distribution and transmission capacity testing. Although the OPA had originally intended to offer contracts to CAE project applications immediately after applications had been deemed complete, no further CAE facility FIT contracts will be offered until June, at the earliest.

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