We received our first glimpse last week on the impact of the 20% rate reduction in Ontario’s Solar PV microFIT (<10 kW) program. The speakers at last week’s Ontario Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) Supply Chain Forum provided extensive new information on the FIT program status. Among other insights, Jim MacDougall from the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) presented a chart that provided a month-by-month tally of incoming applications for the...

Cleantech is widely anticipated to be the next big wealth creation opportunity.      Oddly, however, success in Cleantech business investments has been somewhat elusive especially in the venture capital (VC) community. This paradox is true even though Cleantech has had the strong support of a mature VC industry along with motivated equity markets – albeit impacted by the Financial Crisis and global recession.    Cleantech Pillars...

World Powers Pressure Ontario Agenda Last week the US and the EU both took formal action against Ontario’s Feed-in-Tariff Domestic Content Provisions. In the case of solar projects, these Domestic Content requirements are set to increase to 60% in 2011. Last week’s news foreshadows this week’s sold out Ontario Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) Supply Chain Forum being held in Toronto October 5th and 6th at the Allstream Centre....

Two weeks ago, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures proposed that There are Two Venture Capital Industries – one that funds Software and one that funds Cleantech and Biotech. Fred’s observations have already provoked a number of interesting responses from Rob Day, Erick Schonfeld, Paul Kedrosky, Jeff Busgang, Duncan Davidson and CB Insights among others.  This divergence is underscored by trends on venture capital deal size...

Light Bulb Change by Committee With just over a year left until the Ontario Solar Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) program expires, there were two significant announcements yesterday that have significant implications for how the program operates.  While that news was breaking, however, there has been no update on how many of the approximately 11,000 pending solar ground-mount applications affected by the recent tariff cut had re-applied by the...

The Solar Universe is Small The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) shocked the nascent Ontario PV industry on July 2 with plans to cut the tariff rate on small solar PV ground-mount systems by 27%, from 80.2 ¢/kWh to 58.8 ¢/kWh.     New Eligibility Criteria   Yesterday, August 25, as a follow-up to the finalized rate changes announced on August 13, the OPA provided a series of documents outlining New criteria developed to better define...