Victoria, Canada (GLOBE-Net) – The Canadian government has launched a program to provide $1.5 billion in incentives over 14 years to support renewable energy technologies such as wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, small hydro and ocean power.

The $1.48 billion ecoENERGY for Renewable Power program will provide a payment of one cent per kilowatt hour to producers of renewable energy for the first ten years of a project. According to Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), the investment will lead to the installation of 4,000 megawatts of renewable electricity capacity.

The incentive will apply to projects constructed in the next four years, meaning funding will continue until the 2012-2022 fiscal year. Covered energy sources include wind, small hydro, biomass, solar photovoltaic, geothermal, tidal and wave technologies.

Further details are to be available when the program is implemented this April. The allocation of funding, including the prospect of funding caps for individual provinces or projects, and dedication of set amounts to specific renewables, is still to be determined.

Much of Canada’s electricity already comes from renewable sources, as over 60 percent of the country’s generating capacity comes from hydroelectricity. However, only around one percent comes from new renewable technologies such as biomass, wind, solar, municipal solid waste, geothermal, and ocean energy; small hydro projects contribute around three percent.

Non-renewable electricity sources make up the remainder of Canada’s supply: 11 percent is provided by nuclear, 14 percent by coal, and five percent by natural gas.

The ecoEnergy Renewable Power program will add enough renewable electricity to power around one million homes, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of one million cars, says NRCan.

Renewable heat program

The government also announced the ecoENERGY for Renewable Heat program, which will provide $36 million to increase the use of renewable energy for heating systems.

An incentive will be provided to industrial, commercial, and institutional purchasers of solar heating systems, set at 25 percent of the purchase and installation cost of the system, plus ‘certain other costs’. The government estimates that the program will lead to installation of solar space and water heating in around 700 buildings.

The Renewable Heat program will also fund partnerships with energy utilities, energy service companies, community groups and other stakeholders to develop projects related to residential solar water heating systems. Solar hot-water systems are expected to be installed in several thousand homes across Canada as a result.

Solar and geothermal technologies will be further supported by the development of standards and certification that can be integrated into building codes, and the training of energy designers, technicians and installers.

About 23 percent of Canada’s secondary energy supply goes to water heating and space heating and cooling in residential, commercial and institutional buildings. Solar, geothermal, and ground-source heating, known collectively as ‘green heat’ technologies, remain more expensive than traditional systems and have only been deployed on a very small scale in Canada.

The ecoEnergy initiative was launched last week, when Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn announced a $230 million fund to promote the development and demonstration of clean-energy technologies, focusing on research and development leading to demonstration projects and commercialization.

See: Climate plan: clean energy funding