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...

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...