The controversial Domestic Content Requirements provisions in Ontario’s Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) generated more Solar PV industry activity and intrigue this past week. New announcements from a variety of industry players have added to the controversy generated by the Japanese Government’s recent unfair trade practices complaint to the WTO.   Two separate press releases provided further illumination on a spectrum of issues related to...

Stuck in Transmission The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) has had a pattern of disseminating news for the Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) late on Friday evenings.  This week was different.  With an announcement distributed just before dusk this past Monday, things are definitely looking up. The news was positive even if it came later than expected. We can expect that some additional large PV projects (above 500 kW) will proceed to the contracting...

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...

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....

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...