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It’s been nearly a decade since Ontario Liberals passed the Green Energy Act, an ambitious plan to rid the province of coal-fired electricity and make Ontario a powerhouse in renewable energy manufacturing.

But the lead engineer responsible for designing and implementing a key component of the plan – the FIT and Micro-FIT programs that saw billions of dollars in green-energy contracts awarded to solar and wind companies – tells Global News in an exclusive interview the Liberal government ignored expert advice that, if followed, could have saved Ontario electricity customers billions of dollars in unnecessary spending.

Despite these concerns, the government pushed ahead with its green energy “agenda,” against the better wisdom of its own policy advisers and to the detriment of Ontario electricity customers, he said.

“It was definitely frustrating,” said Jim MacDougall, a former employee of the now defunct Ontario Power Authority (OPA) and the person responsible for design and implementation of the province’s Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) and Micro-FIT programs.

Global News obtained more than 4,000 pages of internal emails, ministerial briefings and other documents created by the OPA between January 2009 and August 2010 – the months leading up to and after the FIT and Micro-FIT programs were launched.

The documents suggest – as MacDougall has indicated – that the government’s own experts, those employed to design and implement the province’s energy policies, were advising the government that technologies such as solar power needed to be developed “gradually” to prevent a “potential flood” of renewable-energy contracts from overwhelming the province’s electricity system and sending hydro bills skyrocketing.

By ignoring this advice, MacDougall says the government missed an opportunity to save billions of dollars and grow the industry slowly. It’s kind of like the government agreed to purchase millions of flat-screen TVs at inflated 2005 prices without taking any steps to take advantage as prices for the new technology dropped rapidly. For example, between September 2009 and February 2010, the OPA said the price of installing ground-mounted solar panels dropped by as much as 30 per cent.

But these recommendations were never implemented by the government and the number of contracts signed in the first two years of the program was enormous, representing roughly 80 per cent of the renewable power purchased through the plans over the past decade.

Asinine.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4237041/o..._campaign=2015