Toronto Wind Icon By Adrienne Baker, Director, Canadian Clean Energy Conferences  A year and a bit into its ambitious feed-in tariff program, Ontario’s renewable energy industries are growing steadily but political uncertainty and grid expansion plans remain top concerns for manufacturers and developers alike. Since the launch of the FIT program in October 2009, several big wind and solar manufacturers have announced plans to set up or...

 Attendance was way up for the Canadian Solar Industry Association’s (CanSIA) annual Solar Industry Conference last week in Toronto, and was at least double that of last year. Virtually all of the presentations were very upbeat. Major announcements at the Conference included MEMC’s new plans for Ontario-based module manufacturing as well as the launch of CanSIA’s Solar Vision 2025. The mood wasn’t all positive, however. Among...

UMG Purification. Photo Courtesy of Calisolar. Polysilicon prices are on the rise again in the solar PV industry, and metallurgically purified polysilicon (UMG) is back in the news. This time, however, UMG is generating interest for strategic market access rather than supply diversification. Download PDF (right-click, save-as) PHOTON Magazine: UMG U-Turn Originally Published in PHOTON International, November 2010. Provided with...

Fossil fuel subsidies encourage wasteful consumption The International Energy Agency released its World Energy Outlook 2010 today. The report bluntly observed that in terms of taking on Climate Change, actions taken under the expected scenario made “it all but impossible to achieve the 2° C goal” from the Copenhagen Accord.  The 2° C goal is the non-binding objective established at the December 2009 climate change...

Oil Rigs operate in LA California Proposition 23, backed by oil companies Tesoro and Valero, has been defeated by California voters. This is good news for green jobs and Cleantech ventures. This Proposition would have set aside California’s Clean Energy Bill, AB 32, passed in 2006. Among other things, AB 32 requires that the State meet a Kyoto Protocol-styled requirement for greenhouse gas emissions. Under AB 32, greenhouse...

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...