Yes, I have talked to other suppliers, and they are saying that they too can meet the 40% domestic content rule. The tracking is the key (brackets and frames). These are more seasoned suppliers who have installed PVs for years even before the FIT and the RESOP had been around. That time there were no Chinese made brackets so they had to make their own. Now, all they need to do is go back to making their own – meeting the 40% content rule and giving jobs to Canadians, not exporting it somewhere else.

Manny Bade

Manny Bade
Poulek Solar Company Ltd. – Canadian Operation

According to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Presentation in June 2008, the cost of building a nuclear reactor in 2008 is US$8.00 per Watt. At the normal rate of 80 U.S. cents per C$ that would translate to C$10.00 per Watt. A 1,000 MW reactor therefore will have a budgeted cost of C$10 Billion. Now, with CANDU’s past records of cost overruns, this amount could easily double to C$20 Billion, by the time the reactor is commissioned.

Now we have to cost in the O&M. Operations and maintenance of a nuclear facility is not cheap. Remember that you cannot hire technicians at $10 per hour. These are nuclear scientists that have to be paid millions of dollars per year. Figure in the containment cost of nuclear waste, the pond that holds the contaminated cooling water so it does not get back into Lake Ontario, etc, and you have billions of dollars in O&M over the 20 year life span of a reactor.

Then there is the future cost of cleanup when the reactor is decommissioned. Here’s report I gathered from Times Union:

Nuclear cleanup to cost billions
State-funded study puts almost $10 billion price on effort at West Valley Nuclear Plant, New York
By Brian Nearing, Staff writer of the Times Union, First published in print: Wednesday, December 3, 2008

True we are paying 6 cents per kWh, but the real cost could be up to a $1.00 as subsidized by the Ontario Government, with all the above hidden costs.

Now, how much does it really cost Ontario to pay 80.2 cents per kWh for its target of 100,000 solar homes? At a maximum 10 kW per home, that would translate to 1,000 MW of installed capacity (equivalent to 1 nuclear reactor) producing 1,200,000,000 kWh per year. AT 80.2 per kWh, that would cost the Ontario Government C$962.4 Million per year, or C$19.248 million in 20 year OPA contracts. That’s less than the cost to build a nuclear reactor, without the O&M and the costly decommissioning costs. And with time value of money since the cost is spread out in 20 years, that would actuall only cost the Ontario Government C$12 Billion in today’s Dollars.

Plus it would create all these 50,000 jobs!

Now tell me, does solar seem more costly than nuclear?

Manny Bade