Atlantic Power & Infrastructure Corp. (AWSL)

[Mr. Zen]

Amazing AWSL News article:

http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/cmo/features/featuredarticle/article.jsp?content=20100120_115150_8952&page=1

Solar projects on the rise in Ontario

Businesses are scrambling to take advantage of Ontario’s new renewable energy feed-in tariff.

By Noelle Stapinsky, Features Editor | January 20, 2010

The race is on to lock down land and rooftop leases for solar panel installations, but the one glitch many eager renewable energy companies are plagued with is the lack of local manufacturing to supply these deals.

As part of the green energy act, the Ontario Power Authority introduced a renewable energy feed-in program (FIT)—North America’s first comprehensive pricing structure for renewable electricity production. The program is intended to phase out coal-fired electricity generation, boost the development of renewable energy technologies and create new green industries and jobs.

But to benefit from the FIT program, companies must meet its 50 per cent content requirements, meaning half of all materials, such as converters, cables, solar panels and labour, must be sourced from within the province.

Toronto-based Hybridyne Power Systems Canada, which specializes in international sales and installation of hybrid wind and solar renewable energy systems, anticipated the requirements and waited for them to be released before deciding where it would set up a manufacturing facility.

Hybridyne had tentative plans to manufacture wind turbines in Newfoundland, but is now looking in Ontario.

“There are not very many companies in Ontario right now that can meet these requirements and a lot of people are scrambling to start manufacturing panels and wind turbines here,” says Brent O’Connor, investor relations for Hybridyne.

Hybridyne is already racking up the orders. It recently announced a solar energy park installation in Newcastle, Ont., about 80 km north of Toronto. Solar panels, supplied by Burnaby, BC-based Day 4 Energy Inc., will be installed on 10 acres of land to produce 2 kW of power, enough to power 360 homes.

“This will be the largest [project] of its kind for a Canadian company and also for a Canadian solar panel manufacturer,” says O’Connor.

The Day 4 order also included an additional 3.1 kW of solar panels destined for rooftop installations in the Toronto area.

Although Hybridyne will not disclose which buildings the additional panels will be installed on, O’Connor says that 1.23 kW of the order will be used on six roof tops it has secured with Remington Group, an Ontario real estate developer.

Hybridyne also recently formed an alliance with Cushman and Wakefield, one of the largest privately-owned commercial realtors in North America.

“We have another 100 [roof top] projects in the pipeline. 30 are about to close and six have already closed,” says O’Connor.

Obviously, they’re going to need more solar panels.

For Day 4, which exports about 95 per cent of its products to Europe, this means it will finally grow its Canadian market.


“Now that Ontario has a performance-based subsidy, [the province will] to increase the amount of renewable energy in their electrical system” says Dr. John MacDonald, CEO of Day 4. “This type of subsidy attracts private capital. You make money generating electricity and you don’t burden the tax payer, you burden the rate payer.”


The new solar FIT rates for Ontario, for example, will be 80.2 cents per kilowatt hour for any solar photo voltaic cell producing less than 10kW, compared to the old rate of 40 cents per kilowatt hour.


The Ontario government’s goal is to generate 10,000 mW of power from the FIT program.


For Ontario companies with solar panel or wind turbine manufacturing capabilities, opportunities abound. But they better move fast, as companies across the country are eyeing up real estate and existing facilities to move production to Ontario and get a piece of the action.