Solar flaring

News — 30 November 2010

If you can’t beat them, join them.

For northwestern residents fed up with escalating electricity rates, the idea of producing one’s own power and selling it back to the grid for profit or to simply offset costs is one that appeals to our sense of independence.

While it could be many years before we find solar panels on every rooftop, enterprising area residents and even the City of Dryden are trying to ‘get in on the ground floor’ by taking advantage of government incentives aimed at sparking renewable energy development. The Ontario Power Authority’s Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) and microFIT program (for smaller projects under 10 kilowatts) offer renewable energy producers 20-year contracts at rates that would allow them to pay off their projects quickly.

Pine River Solar’s Jeremy Nussbaumer works for a company that leases rooftops and small parcels of land from residents to mount solar panels and sell power back to the grid.

With 20 projects currently on the go, primarily in the Fort Frances/Rainy River area, Nussbaumer says there was plenty of interest towards leasing in the Dryden area this past summer when the OPA moved to block the rising tide of commercial solar companies from getting involved in microFIT applications.

“It needed to be done,” said Nussbaumer. “All these big companies would have come in and leased every piece of property, leaving little investment for the little guys like small business owners or farmers.”

Nussbaummer says recent price drops in tracking systems and other elements of ground-mounted solar systems created an imbalance that the province needed to address.

Inundated with 16,000 microFIT applications, OPA sought to level the playing field between the cheaper ground based and rooftop projects by scaling back their original rate from 80.2 cents per kilowatt hour to 64.2 cents for ground mounted applications submitted after July 2. Rooftop projects will still receive the 80.2 cent rate.

“From July 2 into early August, a lot of the panel companies and tracker companies they all got together and the tracker (allows panels to move as sun moves across sky) price came down by about $17,000.”

Dryden’s Dr. John and Alison Dove are no strangers to the solar game. For years they have run their lakeside home off a 5.3 kw wind and solar power generating system, with additional glycol solar panel to heat hot water for domestic use.

When the FIT program was introduced they were keen to take notice and well positioned to take advantage of lower costs for solar power equipment. At the moment the Doves are working towards establishing a 60 kw ground-mounted solar system, a Class 3 FIT project they hope will be worth the onerous application and approvals process.

“The FIT program requires a lengthy and costly environmental assessment whereas the roof mounted microFIT projects only require OPA and Hydro consent,” said Alison Dove. “ John has just submitted his full application, which has taken months to complete and is 80 pages long, and is expected to take up to 6 months for approval.

At a rate of 44 cents per kw/h, the same rate the City of Dryden’s five megawatt FIT project hopes to be awarded, Alison says they hope to have their system paid off in 10 years.

“The return on the project depends on the hours of daylight,” she says. “John is hoping to have solar platforms made which rotate from north to south (instead of east to west) in order to maximize the solar gain.”

Dove adds she thinks the province is headed in a direction that the rest of the country will eventually need to follow.

“We do need to change our dependence on gas, coal and oil,” said Dove. “The Liberals are on the right track in this regard by looking at renewable resources rather than non-renewable resources. Phasing out all coal burning plants is a good start but homeowners and car owners also have to start taking some responsibility for resource misuse.”

Nussbaumer says he sees more and more interest in electricity production at the household level.

“It seems like it’s going to take off a little more,” he said. “As more panel companies come in, there’s more competition and prices will drop eventually. You see a lot more personal investors now because it is more affordable — a rooftop is in the $60,000 range with about a six-year payback. Most people can afford that a little better than a project that’s around $100,000.”

By Chris Marchand

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