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| by Paul Gipe | |
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Ontario Standard Offer Contracts AwardedFebruary 5, 2008 Of the 1,000 MW of Standard Offer Contracts awarded to the end of 2007, 56% of the wind contracts were granted to commercial wind developers, and 95% of the solar PV contracts were awarded to central-station plants.
In the first year of the SOC program, 66 projects representing 27 MW are operational. Some of these were orphan projects. Many are small rooftop solar PV projects of 1-3 kW. It is noteworthy that there are nearly 316 MW of solar PV under contract. Effectively all are central-station plants. In October alone, Opti-Solar added another 70 MW to their portfolio. They have yet to build any of their 10 MW plants. On November 19, 2007 at CanSIA's Toronto conference, Kerry Adler presented SkyPower's position on solar PV in Ontario. Adler, SkyPower's CEO, spoke to a standing-room only audience and told them the province must raise solar PV tariffs for solar to become successful. This was a surprisingly candid statement considering that SkyPower has 28 MW of central-station solar PV under contract. Adler also called on the province to open up the Standard Offer Contract Program to projects greater than 10 MW. SkyPower, like Opti-Solar and Pod Generating, have contracted several 10 MW projects in the same locale to meet the 10 MW project size limit. In a response to a question, Adler again surpised his audience by saying that he expects only 25% of the solar PV projects currently contracted will ever be built. -End- |
