Prime Minister Stephen Harper continued to paint himself in a green light on Friday with the announcement of a $1.5-billion plan into funding renewable energy initiatives.

"There is no end to the potential of alternative, non-polluting energy sources," Harper said in the community of Metchosin just outside Victoria, where he was joined by Environment Minister John Baird and Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn.

Harper said the initiative will "harness the power of our environment to help protect the environment for all Canadians."

The first component of $1.48 billion of the so-called ecoEnergy Renewable Initiative is designed to increase supplies of clean electricity from renewable sources like wind, biomass, small hydro and ocean energy.

A 10-year incentive program will be established to fund eligible projects to be constructed over the next four years.

The second element will provide more than $35 million in incentives for industry to increase the adoption of clean renewable heating technologies for water and space heating in building.

Projects for residential solar heating technologies will also be explored in partnership with utilities and community organizations.

"The incentives contained in (Friday's) announcement are projected to boost the production of clean, renewable Canadian energy by up to 4,000 megawatts a year,'' Harper said.

"In terms of greenhouse gas reduction, that would be the equivalent of taking one million cars off of the road.''

Harper's green push was marked by an environment election challenge to Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, a former Liberal environment minister.

Harper said that if Dion chooses to force an election, he would feel "very comfortable" considering the Tories' record of action on the environment to the Liberal one.

"We obviously know the previous government was not reducing emissions. A lot of the programs they had in place didn't have that effect. Or quite frankly had never got put in place," Harper said.

Shortly after Harper made the announcement, the Liberals issued a statement saying the Tories had simply repackaged previous Liberal initiatives.

"Canadians won't be fooled by this new-found Conservative enthusiasm for renewable power,'' said the statement by Liberal environment critic David McGuinty.

A Dion government would deliver 12,000 megawatts of power from green sources, the Liberals say.

Friends of the Earth Canada issued a similar statement saying the Conservative program appears to be an attempt to rejuvenate previous Liberal strategies.

Friday's announcement is the second of three initiatives that the Conservatives plan to unveil this week.

On Wednesday, Lunn and Environment Minister John Baird announced $230 million in new funding for the development of clean energy technologies.

"This investment in science and technology will go towards finding new ways to protect the atmosphere from waste gases, producing fuel technology to provide emergency back up power instead of using conventional diesel generators, developing an advanced clean coal technology that will enable industry to reduce toxic emissions and studying ways in which to build solar heated homes and communities," said Baird.

Baird is scheduled to be in Vancouver on Sunday where he is expected to announce support for a wilderness area in central British Columbia.

The same day, Lunn is set to make an appearance in Ontario to announce what the government is billing as the third element of its ecoEnergy initiative.

With files from The Canadian Press