I have an article in today’s Toronto Star about a California startup called OptiSolar that has just received approval from the Ontario government to build a sprawling 40-megawatt solar farm in Sarnia. Hundreds of thousands of OptiSolar’s proprietary thin-film panels will be used to cover nearly 900 acres of farm and industrial lands — the equivalent of about 680 football fields (NFL football fields). The project will be build in four 10-megawatt phases and is expected to start in 2008 and finish in 2010. OptiSolar Farms Canada Inc., a subsidiary of the California company, has struck a 20-year contract with the Ontario Power Authority to sell the power from the farm into the provincial grid at 42-cents per kilowatt hour, the established rate for solar power under the province’s new standard offer program. OptiSolar said it chose Ontario for this enormous project because of the standard offer program, which is unique to North America. The Sarnia farm, when complete, is expected to be the largest PV farm in North America and one of the largest in the world, championing other projects underway in Germany and Spain.

Perhaps most interesting is that the power authority, in its 20-year power system forecast, only counted on 40 megawatts of solar power in total being added to the Ontario grid between now and 2025. We’ve already surpassed that goal after just a few months of the standard offer program being introduced, assuming of course these projects actually get built. Obviously, and I’ve pointed this out in previous columns and posts, the power authority low-balled the potential of solar power in Ontario.

Canada’s federal Conservative government has decided to ban inefficient lighting by 2012, following in the footsteps of a similar ban announced last week in Ontario. (See references in speech from Environment Minister John Baird). The feds also says they support a domestic cap-and-trade system and will be exploring expanding that to the United States and even Mexico — again, following in the path of Ontario, which announced earlier this month it was also exploring joining regional cap-and-trade initiatives in the U.S. east and west. Perhaps Ontario was simply scooping an announcement that was already going to be made by the feds, or perhaps the feds are reacting to pressure imposed by Ontario. Either way, we’re heading in the right direction, even if you question the motives of the Harper goverment — which many understandably do.

A number of reliable industry sources have confirmed to me that battery maker A123Systems has quietly acquired Concord, Ontario-based Hymotion, which is one of the leading experts on retrofitting hybrid-electric cars into plug-in models. It makes complete sense. The two companies are already working together to supply plug-in hybrids to fleets in California and New York. Given that A123 will need to bolster its integration skills as part of work its doing with General Motors, having the team at Hymotion on board will be a major benefit.

Note: I did a podcast interview back in February with Hymotion’s founder Ricardo Bazzarella. Click here to listen.

For the latest snapshot on the health of the solar sector, check out this report from Merrill Lynch. It estimates that solar-cell production growth was 35 to 40 per cent in 2006, and maintains the market will have a compounded annual growth rate of 35 per cent through to 2010. The solar PV market in California grew 55 per cent year-over-year in March, with SunPower capturing a lion’s share of that growth. In fact, SunPower saw year-over-year growth of 208 per cent, and this is certainly to benefit Canadian power electronics partner Xantrex. The report points out some of the recent solar news around the world, including the beginning of construction on a 40-megawatt solar park in Saxony, Germany (The size of 200 soccer fields!). There’s no mention of the Ontario market here, but given there are a number of 10-megawatt projects in this province ready to move forward it will be interesting to see year-over-year growth in Ontario a year from now.

On that note, at least one planned project in Ontario is being spearheaded by a new solar PV startup out of California that’s currently operating in stealth mode. I’ll provide more details on that when they become available, but believe me — I’m digging.

CNET’s News.com has a good overview of recent developments around natural, biodegradeable plastics, at this point made mostly from corn starch. The leader in this area is Metabolix, which through a joint venture with Archer Daniel Midlands is moving aggressively to make corn-based plastic cups, bags, utensils, and the like. While I think more study is needed to examine the impact of these biodegradeable products on landfills and recycling programs — that is, are they really natural or harmless? Do they contaminate recycling streams? — I see some great potential in this area, assuming we can wean ourselves off corn and start making these products from residual biomass. Perhaps a bigger question we should be asking is whether it makes more sense to turn biomass into plastics or convert them into a biofuel. Down the road, I’m thinking we go the plastic and chemical route, as I firmly believe the future of transportation will be battery-electric and that the electricity to charge the batteries will be emission-free.