Renewable Energy Approvals & Appeals For Wind & Solar Projects In Ontario

RENEWABLE ENERGY APPROVAL PROCESS

In order to successfully develop wind power and ground-mount solar power generation facilities in Ontario, proponents must obtain a Renewable Energy Approval (REA) from the Ministry of the Environment ("MOE") as required by Ontario Regulation 359/09 made under the Environmental Protection Act. The steps required to obtain a Renewable Energy Approval are outlined in the following diagram:

Complete REA submissions are required in order for applications to be accepted.Once an application is considered complete and has been accepted (this is supposed to take up to 30 days but has taken more than 210 days in some cases) (the "Application Completeness Review Period"), the clock starts ticking on the 6 month service guarantee to reach a decision in respect of the REA application.It should be noted that while the MOE has implemented a 6 month service guarantee, a number of REA applications have taken much longer to