March 6, 2014 – After releasing a review today, the Nova Scotia government is adjusting the Community Feed-In-Tariff (COMFIT) program.

“We’ve received a lot of feedback on the COMFIT program and we are moving on changes as a result,” said energy minister Andrew Younger. “The program has now evolved to a point where approvals need to be limited while we assess what is technically feasible and cost-effective to integrate into the province’s power grid. We also want to maintain COMFIT’s community focus.”

As of January, 89 COMFIT projects had been approved with a total capacity of 200MW. When launched in 2011, the program’s target was 100MW. As such, it is not expected that all approved projects will go into production.

No further applications for large biomass and wind projects of more than 500kW will be accepted. Applications already submitted must be finalized before March 21.

COMFIT is designed for locally based renewable electricity projects, and must be community-owned and connected at the distribution grid. The government has also clarified the program’s definition of “demonstrated community support” for projects.

The next phase will focus on approving smaller projects, supporting projects being built and developing a renewable-to-retail program.

Based on public feedback, the number of approvals per organization or private partnership will be limited. This will move the focus back to the original goal of community-based projects, adds the government.

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