Industry starting to jockey around Ontario market
Thursday, October 1st, 2009Since Ontario’s feed-in tariff program was launched last week, and with the first applications being accepted Oct. 1, there has been a handful of announcements that suggest the new program — despite controversy around local content rules, wind setbacks and land restrictions for solar — is beginning to achieve its intended effect.
Wind developer AIM PowerGen announced yesterday that it has been purchased by International Power PLC, which said Ontario’s Green Energy Act and feed-in tariff program represented a “good basis for long-term investment” and was a “key driver of our interest in AIM.” The value of the deal was disclosed by IPP as $189 million (Canadian). Said David Timm, vice-president of strategic affairs at AIM: “They very much believe that with the Feed in Tariff Ontario ‘is open for business’ and intend to make a big commitment in the province.”
Earlier, Canadian Hydro Developers said it had purchased the rights to develop 4,400 MW of wind offshore in Lake Erie. The Ontario government also disclosed it’s in advanced talks with Samsung C&T about bringing wind and possibly solar manufacturing to the province to support their interest in developing renewable-energy projects in the region. GE is also making moves, as are a number of local companies — Everbrite Solar, CWind and Sustainable Energy Technologies.
While the wind side shows some promise, the solar side looks more troubling. (more…)
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business 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 clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
