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Hydro yesterday formed a partnership with TREC (Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative), which was started by a group of local environmentalists who had hoped to install a single wind turbine on the waterfront this summer.
There are still a few hurdles to overcome, but Hydro and the co- operative are determined to build the windmills, which are to cost $1.2 million each.
Hydro and the co-op will hold two public meetings to consult with local communities about the proposed locations of the windmills on:
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A pair of windmills producing clean electricity will sprout on the city's waterfront, Toronto Hydro promises.
Building the two 20-storey wind turbines, one near the Beaches neighbourhood and another in Etobicoke, saves a proposal first floated a year ago by a fledgling environmental co-operative.
Hydro yesterday formed a partnership with TREC (Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative), which was started by a group of local environmentalists who had hoped to install a single wind turbine on the waterfront this summer.
The co-operative struggled with financial troubles before Hydro, intent on courting consumers in the green electricity market once the industry is opened to competition next year, came to the rescue.
"Last December was especially bleak and we almost went under.
"We wanted to be up and running but it was more like being up and enthusiastic," co-op general manager Bryan Young told The Star.
There are still a few hurdles to overcome, but Hydro and the co- operative are determined to build the windmills, which are to cost $1.2 million each.
They have proposed erecting the windmills on city-owned land near the main sewage treatment plant east of Leslie St. on Ashbridge's Bay and at the R. L. Clark water filtration plant in Etobicoke.
The windmills will become immediate landmarks, with the city's skyline as their backdrop. Their spindly support towers will stand 55 metres tall and their three propeller-like blades - each the length of a wing on a Boeing 767 - will give the turbines a full height of 78.5 metres.
"What a beautiful thing it's going to be. It's a heck of a lot better looking than a smokestack," said Councillor Jack Layton (Don River), chair of the city's environmental task force.
Layton says he anticipates city council will approve the locations by September.
The project will require some form of federal and provincial environmental approval, but environmental groups like the Sierra Club are lining up in its support.
Young hopes the windmills will be spinning out electricity by April.
They won't foul the air, unlike the province's five coal-burning power plants, which produced 190,000 tonnes of smog and acid-rain- producing pollution last year.
But the windmills won't come close to replacing the province's enormous coal and nuclear-powered plants.
Each wind turbine will produce a meagre 1,400 megawatts of energy, the amount of electricity used annually by 250 to 350 homes.
Co-op members, who will invest anywhere from $500 to $3,600 each in the project, will receive half the electricity from the windmills.
The co-op hopes to recruit 1,000 members.
Tim Grant, one of the co-op's first members, expects his investment will be paid back within 10 years through reduced electricity bills at his Roberts St. home near Spadina Ave. and Harbord St.
"I wasn't comfortable with the dirty power coming from nuclear and coal-powered plants," Grant said.
"I've visited Denmark and it was a beautiful and inspiring sight to see all the wind turbines in twos and threes across the Danish countryside,"
Hydro intends to offer its half of the electricity to residential and industrial customers at a premium rate through its green energy program.
The federal government will give the co-op $330,000 from a federal climate-change fund toward the cost of the windmills' construction.
Environment Canada will purchase $98,500 of the power for its Ontario regional headquarters in Downsview.
Brooks said it is impossible to come up with an accurate cost until the Ontario Energy Board sets new rates in the province's post- Ontario-Hydro era.
Hydro and the co-op will hold two public meetings to consult with local communities about the proposed locations of the windmills on:
July 12, 7 p.m. at Humber College, Lakeshore Campus (Room B303), 3199 Lake Shore Blvd. W.
July 13, 7 p.m. at the Royal Canadian Legion, 243 Coxwell Ave.
Credit: STAFF REPORTER
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