Article content continued

Supplied

Q: Germany has earned the title of the first major renewable energy economy. How did that get started?

A: Germany started in the 1990s with policies to trigger the growth of renewables. The government gave priority access to the grid for renewable energy as long as it displaced fossil fuels, and it provided a fixed, feed-in tariff. The cost of building solar and wind installations started to come down and the erosion of old industry took place slowly at first.

Q: How did Germany shut down coal plants?

A: Nobody had to tell coal plants to shut down, they just aren’t making money.The coal industry is phasing out mainly because it’s no longer profitable. With the growth of renewables, electricity prices have gone down. So one is investing in new coal. The last deep coal mine will close in 2017.

Q: Was there a lot of pushback from the coal industry when the government started promoting renewables?

A: No, partly because it started slowly and at a low base. Nobody imagined then it would actually displace and disrupt the business of the big coal companies. Also, big coal utilities did not invest in renewable energy and still do not. They own onlyfive per cent of renewable power and they used to own 85-95 per cent of coal and nuclear power. Smaller companies have been the major players in the renewable energy sector. But I don’t think that will happen in other places including Alberta. The big utilities have wised up to the need to get into the renewable market.