Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today as a complement to my Member’s statement earlier today on net metering and what huge opportunity this has portrayed with Northerners to think globally and to really act locally. We have an opportunity here as a government to make sure that those customers who have taken this risk, that they get full benefit of their investments, and in doing so, we have an opportunity as a government to make sure that we are staying ahead of the pack with incentives and opportunities for those people who deal with self-generation power initiatives.
My questions today are for the Minister who is in charge of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation. To the Minister: Do we know what the actual kilowatt credit dollar amount will be for customers that NTPC will give back to residents that want to put electricity back onto the grid and will there be any difference between a thermal or a hydro zone? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister responsible for NWT Power, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The intent is to provide a reimbursement of the retail rate for the kilowatt hour alternative energy that’s generated and supplied back to the grid. Thank you.
Thank you. So, what we’re hearing from the Minister is we’re going to be giving a retail rate back. I guess to put things in perspective, how close is that to the production costs to us as an organization to this rate? Is there a difference, or is the retail rate pretty close to what it would cost to produce that rate? Thank you.
Thank you. If the Member is interested, we can pull together what we think the cost will be on a community-by-community basis for the two zone bases, the thermal zone and the hydro zone. But clearly it’s not going to be the full cost that the Power Corporation has to pay to generate hydro, so the retail rate would be different. Thank you.
I welcome that information. I’m sure Members of the committee would recommend that it get that as well.
It is documented in some jurisdictions that net metering credits that customers receive are sometimes in the order of two to three times higher than the standard kilowatt base rate, or we heard today is retail rate. Was this something that was discussed as an opportunity, as an incentive for people to put money into solar power? Thank you.
The rate of power already has a significant subsidy from the government. In addition, we have a significant number of rebate programs that are encouraging people to invest in alternative energy, be it biomass, solar, even wind, buying new stoves, buying the equipment that they need to get engaged in the production of the alternative energy. But there’s no other specific subsidy that’s attached to this net metering. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess what we’re trying to do here is think of ways or incentives so that we can entice those people to start making the investment, because it is very expensive and we do appreciate the money that we do give. But has the GNWT talked about any other type of financial incentives to go alongside what is currently available federally, as potentially consumer-friendly loans, remissible grants, tax credits, or even rewards programs for those who want to take advantage of the self-power opportunities? Thank you.
Thank you. When net metering was initially looked at, the focus was to entice and encourage folks in the thermal community, where the costs are very, very significantly higher than the hydro zone. We’ve built this array of supports, but the issue of the taxation, of loans, those types of things have not been considered. We have to wait and see how it works in the hydro zone where we’ll, in effect, be exchanging one type of renewable energy for another as opposed to the thermal zone where we know we’re going to be replacing diesel with solar or wind, whatever other alternative energy is used. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
