Two, it would have been more justifiable to impose another moratorium if the government had let developers keep the sites they had fairly secured. Instead, the government took the sites away and told developers that when the moratorium was lifted they’d have to start from scratch. Not a way to make friends of industry or to make investors feel comfortable in Ontario. It simply made zero sense to go that far, unless of course it was politically motivated — a likely explanation that is no comfort to the developers who put millions of dollars on the line and lost it all.

So, clearly the panicky Liberals are prone to making stupid decisions when under pressure by an opposition party that knows how to press its hot buttons. Will this be repeated for solar? If it was, it would IMHO completely sink the Liberal party heading into this upcoming fall election — particularly if it targeted small solar PV projects covered under the microFIT program. For larger projects, there is technically a moratorium in place. It’s called transmission restrictions, and it means only so many projects can be built in this province until transmission capacity is expanded to accommodate more. There have already been more project contract offers than the transmission system can accommodate, so really the throttle is the pace of transmission updates and the government, through Hydro One, controls that throttle. Better to make this fact clear to voters than to declare a moratorium that does nothing else but prove the Liberal party is on the run from a progressive energy plan it should be proudly promoting, with chest out and head held high.

For the record, I asked the Ontario Power Authority about these solar PV moratorium rumours and the agency flatly denied that a moratorium was coming. “OPA is not planning a moratorium for the FIT/mFIT program,” said spokeswoman Kristin Jenkins in an e-mail. “Right now, we are going through a process to issue contracts for the new Bruce to Milton transmission line which Hydro One recently received approval for. The developers that are eligible are the ones in the Bruce and West of London transmission areas on the FIT priority ranking list.  These developers did not receive contracts in the past because there was not transmission capacity.”

I asked as well about the planned two-year review of FIT pricing. Jenkins said the process will start in 2011, but she could offer no specifics on when. ”We will carry out the required two-year program review in 2011, but a date has not yet been set to start that,” she said. The sooner the better. (note: I deleted a paragraph from the original version of this post which messed up the dates of the upcoming review, leading me to an unnecessary rant. My apologies for the mistake for those who read an early version).

Just the microFIT alone — i.e. rooftop solar PV less than 10 kilowatts — has seen more than 25,000 applications approved, while larger projects that have been given the go-ahead under the FIT are expected to add more than 1,000 megawatts of solar PV to the grid over the coming two or three years. On Friday, solar PV manufacturer Canadian Solar will be holding a jobs fair in Guelph, the location of its new module manufacturing facility. The company is looking to hire process technicians, general operators, logistic staffs, engineers and others, a true sign of the type of job creation emerging from the FIT program and, behind it, Ontario’s Green Energy and Green Economy Act.

“We have a long-term commitment to this important market, and have previously announced our selection of Guelph, Ontario as the site of a 200 megawatt solar PV module plant,” said Shawn Qu, president and CEO of Canadian Solar. “This facility will be Canadian Solar’s first feed-in-tariff domestic content compliant solar manufacturing plant in Ontario, and is expected to require approximately 500 people to run at full capacity.”

The jobs fair, again, will be held Friday, February 11 at Canadian Solar’s new facility at 545 Speedvale Avenue West in Guelph (see Google Map here) between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

The folks who get hired — these are the faces of the future workforce in Ontario. They need to be known. Job numbers need to be personalized. The FIT/microFIT program has its problems, but evidence of job creation is the one thing that will justify and sustain Ontario’s direction. Ratepayers and taxpayers want to see evidence beyond politicians touting numbers that can’t be verified. It’s time to bring faces to numbers, and give people a true sense of what these jobs mean for those entering the workforce and those with families to support who are trying to get back into the workforce. It’s not just manufacturing, either. It’s about the installers, the electricians, the tradepeople and others finding work in the solar PV area. It’s also about the many faces who are participating in the microFIT — farmers, community co-ops, schools, homeowners, aboriginal communities. This isn’t just about foreign companies coming in to the province to feast on generous subsidies. This is about average Ontarians choosing to participate in the future of a cleaner electricity system. This is the message that needs to be heard.

NOTE: To anyone who gets a new job in this sector, let me know. I’d like to hear your story and how green energy in Ontario helped you find steady employment.

Key findings:

• Doubling of jobs by 2011.
• Industry shortage of installers right now.
• By 2011 there will also be a shortage of system designers, project managers and engineers.
• Recommendation to increase training and relevant curricula.

My guess is that most of these shortages and job opportunities will be created in Ontario, given the province’s Green Energy Act and progressive feed-in tariff program.

“We are seeing continued strength in demand for our product in Europe and remain confident in our contracted sales for 2009, however, given the broader economic environment and seasonal weather patterns we are being proactive in managing our business to avoid inventory build-up,” said Day4 Energy co-founder and president George Rubin.

Fair enough, but a third of staff? Talk about hacking off a limb or two. It may be that the company hired too many too fast and, recognizing the fact that solar PV prices are expected to fall substantially in 2009, is using the current economic climate as an opportunity to recalibrate. While true that Day4′s material costs are expected to fall as well, it may still see a margin squeeze. Better to deplete inventory now and rebuild with cheaper materials to retain what margins it can. I’m just guessing, of course, but I’m sure rehiring will start again mid-2009.

Company shares fell 11 per cent today on the news. Trading at around 79 cents on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the stock is nearly 90 per cent off its 52-week high. Click here for a past post on the company.

Analysts talk about the likelihood that solar PV module costs will fall 35 per cent in 2009 because of competition from thin-film technologies and an oversupply of polysilicon. This is good news for those contemplating solar, particularly developers with multi-megawatt projects on the drawing board. But in the residential market, even in Ontario where a 42-cent feed-in tariff is offered, solar PV is still too expensive and the payback too far off.

MSR Innovations has come up with a new type of roofing system designed specifically as an enabler of solar PV. The system, basically 2×2 foot polymer tiles that are installed on special tracks, are just as affordable as putting up fibre-glass shakes or concrete tiles, and in fact MSR’s tiles can be installed on their own without solar. But if the homeowner wants to add solar, it’s as easy as sliding out a row or two of tiles and replacing them with clear hollow tiles that have PV cells snapped in underneath. The idea is that solar is the roof, and not an addition to a roof. It’s an example of building-integrated PV (BIPV). The goal is to nearly eliminate the cost of installing solar by building those costs into the roof installation.

Anyway, give the column a read for more details. I like MSR’s approach and hope this small company, founded by two former Ballard Power employees, can make some headway with roofing companies and homebuilders, which could easily use this tiling system to make entirely new subdivisions “solar PV ready.”

At the Canadian Solar Industries Association two-day annual conference in Toronto today Andrew Kinross from Navigant Consulting said he expected grid parity in Ontario to be reached between 2020 and 2023. This is based on an expected increase in fossil fuel prices and the expectation that CO2 emission credits will be valued at $70 per ton. While 2020 might sound like a long time, one has to consider that Ontario currently has relatively inexpensive electricity prices in a North American context (and certaintly compared to Europe) and there are less hours of sunlight over a year compared to, say, California.

As much as 12 years sounds like a long time, I don’t see it that way. I was married eight years ago and it seems like yesterday. I smile thinking that my oldest daughter will be 18 years old when this milestone is reached, and my youngest just 15. To think that my grandchildren will take solar PV for granted (and will see coal power as so yesterday) the same way my girls take the Internet and iPods for granted (and can’t imagine a world of typewriters, film cameras and vinyl records), it makes me smile. Hell, 12 years ago I remember just graduating from journalism school. Blackberry devices were just two-way pagers. We didn’t have home wireless networks. We still used dial-up Internet services at home.  I got my first DVD player. Cellphones then were a novelty. Today, they’re pretty much a necessity.

Time flies, and 12 years has gone by so fast. At the same time, so much has happened over those years to transform how we work and play. More than that, some companies I spoke with at the conference thought Ontario would get there sooner than 2020.

Interesting days… It’s a reason to get excited and to hope.

NOTE: If you’re interested in hearing about the first day of the Canadian solar conference, click here. And for a sense of what the Ontario government might be planning to further boost renewable energy and green-collar job creation in the province, click here.

Oh, and one more thing: Greentech Media has a story about First Solar and one analyst’s claim that it has reached the coveted grid-parity milestone with its thin-film modules.