Canada is poised to be a leader in the growing wind energy sector if the federal government takes the reins in crafting a national strategy, a trade group that represents the industry says.

Wind turbines at a 44-windmill farm near Port Alma, Ont., close to the shores of Lake Erie: Canada lags behind countries like Denmark, Spain and Germany in wind energy. (Dave Chidley/Canadian Press)

"We need a strategy," Robert Hornung, the president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association, recently told the CBC. "We need a vision of where we want to be in 10 years, and how we want to get there."

Once a federal subsidy set up in 2007 that reimburses wind energy projects to the tune of one cent per kilowatt hour expires in March 2011, he said, Canada will be left with a hodgepodge system where different provinces and municipalities forge ahead without any clear direction from Ottawa.

The country's electricity regime is set up such that the provinces have much more control over energy regulation and infrastructure than the federal government does. Many of the provinces already have medium-term strategies, such as the Green Energy Act in Ontario and the Clean Energy Act in B.C., Hornung said.

"The one area where we have no plan is federally," he said.

Dialogue needed

Even aside from actions as direct as subsidies and grants, Ottawa can lead the way by getting different stakeholders to the table together. "The federal government is limited in what they can do in the energy sector, but they are the best ones to facilitate a dialogue between those that can," he said.

Other countries have made great strides in the area of wind power. Denmark currently produces 20 per cent of its electricity needs from wind energy. In Spain, the figure is 13 per cent. Industrial heavyweight Germany is also a leader, with eight per cent. Five years ago, China set a target of having 5,000 megawatts of total wind capacity by 2010. In 2009 alone, the country installed 15,000 megawatts. It's bringing another 17,000 megawatts online this year, and the target for 2020 has soared to nearly 300,000 megawatts, Hornung said.

"These countries are doing so well because they started the process 15 years ago," he said. "We're coming late to the party, but we're on the same growth path," and perhaps even better equipped to profit, he said.

Canada currently has 3,550 megawatts of wind power capacity, according to the Canadian Wind Energy Association, or roughly two per cent of total electricity generation. But the country is poised to be a leader, Hornung said, in large part because of the quality of what he called Canada's "wind resource".

In layman's terms, that means Canada has a lot of steady, strong, dependable wind across its massive territory. And it's very well distributed. There are wind farms in every Canadian province, Horning noted, something that's not true of most other energy sources. Prince Edward Island, for example, has very few natural resources that can generate energy, but the province has managed to produce roughly 18 per cent of its power needs from wind. Long term, it hopes to hit 30 per cent and sell even more as excess.

'We're coming late to the party '—CANWEA president Robert Hornung

Canada is also ideally situated because the country is already heavily invested in hydroelectricity, which satisfies 60 per cent of the country's power demand. Hydroelectricity is the ideal partner for wind energy since production can be easily reduced when wind picks up the slack, and ramped up when wind is unable to pull its weight on the grid, Hornung said.

The potential gains are immense. In 2009, more than $95 billion US was invested in wind energy projects worldwide. Already responsible for 400,000 jobs worldwide, that's expected to grow to 2 million by 2020.

Although the world's major producers of large turbines are all foreign, Canada is becoming a leader in making smaller turbines and some components. In July, auto parts manufacturer Linamar Corp. signed a deal with German firm NCB Lohmann to make turbine components.

Hornung predicts more such deals, if the federal government provides proper direction.

"We would like to see Canada grab a growing piece of this pie," he said.