The Canadian Solar Industry has been waiting almost 2 years for this day.
The details of the stated rules of the project are still being clarified, but the OPA and the Provincial Government has put significant thought into the design of the program.
One area that I think all their efforts went astray is in limiting soil classification types available for development in order to "artificially" cap the program size.
There is no official hard cap on the program size. Instead of specifically capping the FIT program, the provincial government has chosen to limit the FITs growth potential by not allowing for development on Class 1 and 2 prime agriculture lands. Additionally, on Class 3 Ag land, there is a limit of 500 MWs of development.
I can understand the thinking, lets's not ruin all of our prime agriculture with development. I just think it is outdated and non-applicable for Solar PV.
The newest technologies for mounting structures for utility-scale solar PV are pole-driven in which no large cement foundations are buried in the ground.
Instead, a large machine goes along the surface and punches a steel pole straight down about 5 feet. As these are done in rows, the aluminum or steel racking is mounted to these poles, and the solar modules are placed on this racking. Then what happens?
The fixed-tilt solar arrays, sit there for 20 years and produce clean, waterless, emission-free solar energy. And then... ?
If the project is to be disassembled, all of the pieces are taken apart in reverse order and the driven poles are simply pulled out of the ground. The earth below is in exactly the same condition that it was before the development.
And even if these new mounting technologies did not exist or were not used, check out this quote from CanSIA (Solar Industries Association):
The government has limited solar development to barely more than 500 megawatts on class 1, 2 & 3 lands. However, based on earlier government decisions, the solar industry is already working on plans for 2000 megawatts which was to be built on only 0.11% of class 1, 2 and 3 agricultural lands over the next 15 to 20 years.
Even the farmers who protect the land vigilantly agree with CanSIA:
”The government and the farm organizations like the OFA should rethink their objections to solar farms on agricultural land, which will provide a stable income source for farmers over many years to come,” said David Rystenbil, a farmer from Russell, Ontario.
So while I think that the program will still be a success with renewable energy development only on Class 3, 4, 5 and brownfield properties, I believe this was not the most elegant design of a FIT.
No projects have actually been built to date, so we'll see what really comes of it.
You can read more about the OPA FIT program at http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/FIT/.
You can read more about the Canadian Solar Industries Association at http://www.cansia.ca/
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