Ontario inks over 50 MW of PV projects in first four months
June, 2007: The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) reports that it has approved 27 contracts for over 50 MW of PV generating capacity in the first four months of the year through the Canadian province's new Renewable Energy Standard Offer Contract Program.
The program officially went live late last year but did not execute its first contracts until 2007. It offers PV projects the highest price for renewable energy fed into the Ontario grid at a non-declining 42ˇéCAD (37.7ˇé USD) per kWh over 20 years.
So far, the program has attracted mostly large-scale projects, including a 9.12 MW project to be installed southwest of Toronto by large US-based project developer and installer SunEdison LLC and Canadian joint-venture partner SkyPower Corp. This is the first of several joint projects being pursued by the two companies that has been approved by the OPA, which caps the size of any given project at 10 MW. Construction is planned to begin in the fall. The companies have said they intend to build at least 50 MW by 2009.
Four contracts, each for 10 MW plants, were awarded to OptiSolar Inc. of Hayward, California. That company, however, does not yet have a sellable product. According to a developer with OptiSolar, the company is developing an amorphous silicon thin-film module but does not yet have a manufacturing plant. So, the potential for realization of these 40 MW of projects using their own modules doesnˇ®t seem very high.
According to OPA, it had approved a total of 65 contracts for 329.9 MW of wind power, solar PV, hydropower, and bio-energy projects through April. Another 71 applications were under review.
Media Contact:
Mr. Anthony Long
Media Coordinator
Solar Power Canada 2008
Tel: +00 1 905 471 3808
Email: media@solarcanadaexpo.com
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