I interviewed Jamie Ballem our minister for Energy, the Environment and Forestry today for a story in Trusted Space that will launch in a week's time.
We will be talking in the interview about how a small place like PEI is on track to become one of the most energy self-sufficient societies in the west.
In the interim - we are also setting a new trend for Social Funding. The habit for governments is to borrow money for the general pot in the global markets. On PEI we are now borrowing targeted money - not from the global money markets but from ourselves in a patriotic gesture - like war Bonds - to fund our second province owned wind farm. The Guardian describes the launch like this. More details about the issue are found here.
There are many exciting issues here - the key being that it is not enough for a society to make the shift to renewables but to ensure that the full benefit goes not to a developer from outside the community but to the community itself. The other key idea for me is that a healthy community funds itself.
We are on our way to a very exciting future where PEI will source 30% of its energy from renewables owned by the community itself. We will meet our first target of 15% of electricity being renewable this year - 3 years ahead of schedule. Here are some pictures of the new farm under construction. here is a cute TV ad
