Solar Energy Giants
Posted by John Malloy on 03/26/2009
A coming green-energy law and the promise of long-term incentives for producers of renewable power have put Ontario on the radar of some big-name solar companies looking for certainty in a volatile marketplace.
This month alone, Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar Inc., one of the world’s leading suppliers of next-generation solar modules, and solar power supplier Recurrent Energy Inc. of San Francisco have acquired and plan to develop multi-megawatt solar projects in Ontario.
Meanwhile, San Jose, Calif.-based Nanosolar Inc. tells the Toronto Star that it is seriously eyeing Ontario as the location of a regional assembly plant for its thin-film solar modules. Nanosolar is also working with French energy giant EDF Energies Nouvelles to map out project potential in the province.
“The Ontario policies are very promising and we are now actively tracking this,” said Nanosolar founder and chief executive Martin Roscheisen. The new prices the province is willing to pay for solar power, he said, “could tip the balance in favour of investment in Ontario.”
The Star has learned that at least two other firms – one of them domestic – are planning to set up solar-cell manufacturing operations in Ontario.
It’s the early response the McGuinty government was hoping to get when it tabled its Green Energy Act last month and, more recently, announced a new renewable-power purchase program that offers a generous premium for green power – electrons that flow from solar panels, wind turbines, hydro facilities and biomass systems.
The Ontario Power Authority has proposed European-style “feed-in tariffs” that would see it pay, as part of a 20-year contract, 80.2 cents for every kilowatt-hour of power that comes from a residential rooftop solar photovoltaic system.
As systems grow larger the feed-in tariff declines. The power authority would pay 71.3 cents for rooftop systems up to 100 kilowatts, dropping to 63.5 cents for systems up to 500 kilowatts and 53.9 cents for anything above that. Such systems would likely be found on the rooftops of schools, commercial buildings and big-box stores.
The lowest tariff, 44.3 cents, applies to “ground mount” systems that don’t exceed 10 megawatts. This would apply to the massive solar farms that sprawl across acres of empty fields.
All prices replace a fixed 42-cent tariff that applied to all system categories that existed under a previous program, which itself was a continental first when introduced two years ago.
Arno Harris, CEO of Recurrent Energy, said the new tariffs make Ontario an attractive market for his company, which yesterday purchased a project pipeline totalling 350 megawatts from Chicago-based UPC Solar.
Harris said Recurrent and other large developers are taking advantage of the economic downtown to consolidate the market. The “vast majority” of projects acquired from UPC, he said, are based in Ontario.
“Adding a pipeline like this to our business increases our bargaining power,” said Harris, explaining that economies of scale allow the company to lower costs by placing bulk orders for solar modules. “Our goal is to develop over 100 megawatts and get it into commercial operation by 2012.”
In early March, First Solar purchased a pipeline of more than 2,000 megawatts of solar projects from Hayward, Calif.-based OptiSolar Inc. in a stock deal valued at $400 million (U.S.). About 10 per cent of those projects are based in Ontario.
Not all developers, however, are convinced that the tariffs are high enough to lure the kind of investment and green-collar jobs the government is counting on. Though praising the rooftop tariffs, some say the tariff for the large ground-mount systems is too low in the current market environment, where the cost of capital is simply too high to make such projects economically feasible…
www.thestar.com
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