Renewable Energy

Renewable Energy developer, and policy advocate for Solar, Wind, Small Hydro, and domestic sized hydro, Neal Livingston has a 30 year career as a renewable energy developer and policy advocate for solar, water and wind power. Micro-Hydro: Since 1980 both at his home and helping others. Livingston had one of the first modern micro hydro units at his home since 1980, stand alone from the grid, and then was the first person to net meter with the utility from home sine 1993. Since 1984 he owns and operates Black River Hydro Ltd., a 220 kilowatt hydro-electric plant which he planned, contracted, and oversaw the building of. It was Nova Scotia's first new private company selling electricity to the grid. It has a long term contract to sell its power to Nova Scotia power. This work also involved years of public advocacy policy work to have fair rates and conditions for small private producers. This 1990 policy victory has now been scrapped by the Nova Scotia Government which unfortunately prefers an unregulated market where the private utility without oversight set all the rules and rates paid for renewables. Some changes are pending to public policy for 2011 in Nova Scotia.

Starting in 2003 Livingston began to work on developing commercial sized wind power projects in Nova Scotia. In 2005 he formed Black River Wind Limited with Peggy Cameron. Black River Wind Limited has a portfolio of approx. 250MW of planned wind projects for Nova Scotia. To date Black River Wind has completed wind testing studies in 5 geographic areas, and has a fully approved and permitted 6Mw wind project with a 20 year contract to sell the power to Nova Scotia Power. The 6Mw project is slated to be built in 2011 dependent on financing of the project.