Meet the man behind Canada’s leading renewable energy cooperative

Chris Caners, CEO of Toronto renewable energy cooperative Solar Share, talks to me about the many benefits of solar power. He smiles, his whole face coming alive. He clearly loves the technology.

“Solar is an amazing mechanism for generating electricity because you can do it literally anywhere,” he says. “So you avoid things like transmission losses because… you generate power where you consume it.”

He also speaks enthusiastically about the availability of solar energy.

When he joined Solar Share in 2016, solar power cost 75 cents a watt. Now it’s closer to 30 cents—less than half. “So it’s amazing,” he says.

Caners explains that R&D and mass production in China are key factors in reducing the cost of solar. He looked at the prices of different energy sources and said without hesitation that “industrial solar and wind — big, big solar and wind — are by far the cheapest.”

Solar is cheaper, but it’s also more stable. “You don’t have the variability of operating costs like you do with (other) fuels,” Caners says. “If we have to rely on uranium or gas or coal … those are international or continental markets, and prices go up and down. Whereas with solar, you know, it lasts 25 years and there’s no other fuel for it but the sun.”

Solar is cheaper, but it’s also more stable. “You don’t have the variability of operating costs like you do with (other) fuels,” Caners says. “If we have to rely on uranium or gas or coal … those are international or continental markets, and prices go up and down. Whereas with solar, you know, it lasts 25 years and there’s no other fuel for it but the sun.”

Solar Share was founded in 2010 and now owns and operates more than 50 solar projects in Ontario. It raises capital by selling “solar bonds” to Ontarians — for a minimum of $1,000 each — that pay a fixed interest rate, typically three to five per cent a year. The co-op has about $80 million in investments. (Full transparency: I’m a member!)

Playing devil’s advocate, I ask Caners whether organizations like his can operate on a scale large enough to solve the climate crisis. Solar Share is one of the largest renewable cooperatives in the country, but it has only about 2,000 members.

Caners says there is no reason cooperatives have to be small, and with the support of government policy, they can become large, powerful organizations. “Cooperatives can grow (up); and if you look at places in the world where cooperatives have been successful, I think you will see that (they) have had to have … government support. But they can certainly be huge players.”

In particular, he cites the large number of cooperatives in Germany. “It is very common for German citizens to be members of an energy cooperative and buy electricity from the cooperative,” he says.

Of course, this large group of residents who benefit from renewable energy is a powerful voting bloc that can protect these projects from hostile governments—a key lesson for us in Canada. If we want wind and solar to thrive, we need to make sure the benefits of these energy sources accrue to many people.

If we want wind and solar energy to expand, we need to ensure that the benefits of these energy sources reach as many people as possible.

These benefits include local employment. Caners tells me that solar energy creates a whole range of good jobs, some of which are not immediately obvious.

“(Consider) project development. Well, there’s a lot of work in trying to find the right places for solar. You need people to go out and talk to people to find the land and make the connections,” he says. “Then there’s all the (work) once you get the site and you have the consent of the owners and the neighbors. Then you have the engineering, procurement and construction. That’s a huge amount of work. Once that’s done, we have the operations and maintenance (of the solar panels).”

Our conversation turns to the federal government’s proposed clean electricity regulations, which would largely phase out gas and coal over time. The David Suzuki Foundation believes the phaseout could be achieved by 2035, but some politicians are skeptical. What’s Caners’ view? Do we need fossil fuels on the grid after the mid-2030s?

“Clearly, no. We’ve seen a lot of examples. California generates all of its power over time from 100 percent renewables. They’re huge, and they’ve done it. Costa Rica has done it. I believe the U.K., even at different times, has done it. … I remember 20 or 30 years ago people saying, ‘Oh, there’s no way we can put more solar on the grid than 15 percent or 10 percent. It’s just not possible.’ Okay, well, it’s possible. I don’t buy the argument that we can’t do it.”

“Clearly, no. We’ve seen a lot of examples. California generates all of its power over time from 100 percent renewables. They’re huge, and they’ve done it. Costa Rica has done it. I believe the U.K., even at different times, has done it. … I remember 20 or 30 years ago people saying, ‘Oh, there’s no way we can put more solar on the grid than 15 percent or 10 percent. It’s just not possible.’ Okay, well, it’s possible. I don’t buy the argument that we can’t do it.”

As our conversation winds down, I ask Caners what’s next for his organization. He says he’d like the co-op to participate in something called “virtual net metering.”

“So right now we can’t set up a solar project and sell you our power,” he says. “We can just sell our electricity to the government. We want to set up a solar project and then sell kilowatt-hours to people who want to buy kilowatt-hours from Solar Share. … I think that would be very exciting and would allow us to deploy more solar. I would love that! Virtual net metering is probably the thing I’m most interested in as a way forward.”

Say YES to affordable, safe and renewable energy by 2035.