June 26, 2002—An environmental group based in Ontario, Canada, Friends of the Earth, has launched the Green Electricity Leaders’ Coalition of Ontario (GELCO). GELCO is designed to promote the purchase of green electricity by commercial electricity customers in Ontario.
The Government of Canada has been promoting green electricity since 1997, when significant amounts of wind-generated electricity were purchased for its facilities in Alberta. The government also announced in Budget 2000 new “green power” purchases for federal facilities in Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island.
The release of the Friends of the Earth’s Green Electricity Buyers’ Guide to help more corporations make the right choice more easily, was supported in part through a $50,000 contribution from the Government of Canada’s Climate Change Action Fund.
Through Action Plan 2000, the Government of Canada has announced measures to accelerate the introduction of emerging renewable energy sources in the market place, including purchasing 20 per cent of federal electricity requirements from these new energy sources. In May 2002, Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal launched a new $260 million federal production incentive to encourage the construction of 1,000 megawatts of new wind power capacity over five years.
