Samsung in advanced talks to set up wind, solar manufacturing in Ontario
I just learned — and confirmed — today that South Korean industrial and electronics giant Samsung Group is in serious, high-level talks with the Ontario government about setting up manufacturing operations in the province for wind, and possibly solar, that would be used to supply its own renewable-energy development projects in the area and neighbouring jurisdictions. A framework agreement could be signed soon, and would pave the way for the creation of hundreds of jobs and the investment of billions of dollars in the province.
This comes on the heels of the long-awaited launch of Ontario’s feed-in tariff (FIT) program, which was accompanied by an announcement of local content rules that will required 25 per cent Ontario content for wind and 40 to 50 per cent for solar. On Jan. 1, 2011, the solar target will rise to 60 per cent, while wind will jump to 50 per cent on Jan 1, 2012. Read story here for more details, and click here for list of feed-in tariff rates. UPDATE: Government put out a statement here.
I’ll be writing more analysis and commentary later on the FIT program and what to expect.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:51 am
[...] biggest news of late being that the Ontario government is in advanced talks with industry heavy weight Samsung C&T about setting up solar and wind manufacturing in Ontario [...]