Canada Solar Power

Canada Solar Power is looking up!

Here’s three words you might not expect to see together:  Canada Solar Power.  After all, the northernmost North American Country is not exactly known for sunny weather!

Yet, surprisingly, there is plenty of good news on the solar front coming from Canada recently.  In the northern reaches of this northern country, solar power is heating up!  Among other things, First Solar and the Canadian pipeline company Enbridge have recently announced that they will be working together to quadruple the size of a solar farm in Ontario.

Some of the details were reported last week on thestar.com:

Enbridge Inc. has decided to quadruple its investment in Ontario’s solar-power market, announcing Tuesday it is acquiring another six solar farms in Sarnia from California’s First Solar Inc. The Calgary-based oil pipeline giant said it will pay an additional $300 million to add 60 megawatts of solar capacity to the 20 megawatts it purchased in October for $100 million. The solar projects fetch 42 cents per kilowatt-hour over 20 years for the electricity they produce under Ontario’s older Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP).

Lest you wonder about solar power in northern latitudes, we should all take a page from Germany’s book (the world’s leading solar market).  That country has shown that its not as important to have optimal solar patterns, as it is for the economics of a project to be well thought-out.

The First Solar-Enbridge venture is not the only newsworthy story to report for Canada solar power.  SkyPower and SunEdison also recently paired up to create the third largest solar farm in North America, and the largest PV farm in Canada:

All of this just goes to show that you cannot judge the renewable energy market based on its “cover.”  In other words, don’t count out a region just because of a preconception regarding sunny days (or windy ones, etc.).

Because Ontario has a European-styled solar incentive structure, I will bet that we’ll see much more solar energy from the northern regions of Canada in the months and years ahead!

Tags: canada solar power, enbridge, first solar, largest solar farm, leading solar market, skypower, solar farm ontario, sunedison