More clean-energy news. Montreal-based ICP Solar Technologies Inc., a private company but one of the top-three solar manufacturers/suppliers in Canada, has partnered up with Titan Energy Systems of Andhra Pradesh, India.

Titan has been a manufacturer of crystalline and amorphous solar modules for 10 years. ICP plans to make its solar cells at its U.K. plant in Wales and have the unfinished product shipped to Titan’s facility in India for final lamination and finishing. ICP said the move will help increase the overall efficiency and productivity of its solar module manufacturing model.

The kicker is that Titan will also become a reseller of ICP’s products throughout India and the Pacific Rim, where there is a growing demand for renewable energy technologies such as solar PV. “Titan’s commitment is to purchase up to 1 megawatt by the end of the year,” ICP said in a release, pointing out that 1 MW is the rough equivalent of 60,000 1-by-3 feet solar panels.

“For ICP,” the company said, “This relationship provides… unprecedented access to emerging markets and an increased percentage of the total global market of ‘off-grid’ solar energy products.”

ICP also said it is opening a new distribution centre in Dallas, Texas, to be closer to solar buyers in the region, particularly solar-hungry states such as California.

It’s encouraging to suddenly see activity in the relatively dormant Canadian solar PV market. We’ve got ATS Automation Tooling Systems of Cambridge ramping up its solar manufacturing operations at France-based Photowatt and making headway at its Canadian manufacturing startup, Spheral Solar Power. We’ve got Carmanah Technologies in Victoria, B.C., buying up Soltek Powersource (SPS Energy) earlier this month to beef up its own solar-powered LED business, and now ICP is expanding its reach into Asia.

It’s unfortunate that this momentum isn’t taking place when it comes to Canadian use of solar PV and government support of such initiatives. The Canadian Solar Industries Association released a position paper last week encouraging the Ontario government by 2006 to establish feed-in tariffs, similar to those offered in Europe, that would pay homeowners and businesses 42 cents for every kilowatt hour of solar electricity they put back into the grid.

CanSIA says taking this approach would boost the sale of 3-kilowatt or less solar PV systems in Ontario from less than 100 a year currently to 5,000 a year by 2015, amounting to an installed capacity of 40 megawatts annually. The association argues that such a policy would drive down the price of PV systems and installation, increase jobs, and boost Canadian expertise in the area. The hope is that if Ontario adopted the policy it would be embraced by other provinces.

“This is not an expensive program for governments… if structured as a ‘public benefit charge’ it would cost the average ratepayer $0.70 per year – or less than the price of a chocolate bar,” CanSIA states in its paper.

It’s worth considering. Solar electricity is one the fastest — if not the fastest — growing energy sources in the world. As companies such as ATS, Carmanah and ICP position to tap that worldwide growth, does Canada want to be left behind when it comes to actually using these systems?

Recent policy out of the federal government seems to focus on creating incentives for wind power, biomass and other renewable energy production that amounts to massive grid-tied projects. I’ve said it before, but it’s shameful that the government hasn’t thought to provide similar incentives to individual homeowners and businesses that want to take their energy needs into their own hands and reduce their dependence on the grid through solar. Ontario should seriously consider acting on CanSIA’s position paper.

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