Stakeholder submissions | Ontario Power Authority - Feed-in Tariff Program

Stakeholder submissions

Title:	Ground Solar PV on Brownfields, including municipal and industrial landfills
Submitted By:	Robert Willes, ArcStar Energy Canada
Date:	6/24/2009
Document Text:	In ArcStar Energy Canada's view, the Green Energy Act (GEA) provides Ontario with a unique opportunity to address two environmental problems for Ontario; Brownfield redevelopment and electricity from renewable energy. The investor's returns are too low to enable redeveloped of many Brownfield properties because of the amount of capital and the clean-up time to get the property to market. Ontario Power Authority's Feed-In Tariff (FIT) provides an opportunity to significantly contribute to the required remediation revenue if the FIT pricing for electricity produced by renewable energy system installed on Brownfield was increased. Renewable energy sources like solar PV can operate on Brownfields, providing revenue for less aggressive remediation approaches (e.g., bio-remediation and/or phyto-remediation). If the property is satisfactorily remediated before the 20 year time requirement of the FIT contact, the solar PV installation could be transferred to the roofs of buildings on the property. A small financial stimulus comparable to the FIT rooftop electricity pricing for solar PV (e.g., in the range of $0.65/kWh) would put brownfields on at least a level playing field with greenfield installations where no remediation costs would be required. This approach also circumvents the negative issues related to ground-based solar PV installations on agricultural and usable industrial lands. ArcStar Energy Canada is aware that similar proposals have been made by others, and believe that the OPA should support this concept.

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