RE: ROB Mag. Article: Ontario Solar...
Great read ToXRAY
Reading that article makes one think that perhaps STG would fare better without the domestic content rules. Solar may take off quicker if thin film (which the Sunergy peaks with) were allowed in without domestic content rules. Our old BOSCH agreement which drove this to .49 would once again have a chance to come to fruition with thin film.
The negative aspect of course would be that Ontario would be flooded with Asian products but again, as far as any research, there appears to be only one competitor in the 5 Mw parallel inverter field and that is ENPHASE who is already here. The money S.E.T. has invested in Ontario so far isn't a major concern. Life would go on as normal with their manufacturing already in place for the North American market.
Room for both Enphase and Sunergy. Of course this would be a disaster for other solar component companies who invested into Ontario and would then be exposed to Asian imports who wouldn't have to play by the rules with investment into the province. The incentive to invest in Ontario is to eliminate competition and it would hurt many.
Module companies appear to be a dime a dozen and they, IMHO, are not the place to put your investment into.
With oil at its' current price and rising due to the Arab nation unrest and other factors, the Western nations appear to be headed for trouble unless they get their acts together on sustainable energy and natural gas. There is an abundance of natural gas in North America and the technology of natural gas vehicles has been around for decades. Too many pay offs by oil producing nations and Big Oil to politicians and their parties in the way of support is the only thing I can think of. Both major parties in Canada have extensive personal investment and connections to BIG OIL as does the U.S. of A. No doubt Europe is the same.
Either that or our taxes on our oil products are so high, governments rely on them extensively and they aren't too sure they can achieve the same tax base from natural gas. I don't see why not. However, filling my car up at home with natural gas would be an economical bonus if it could be achieved but I believe you would need a compressor which wouldn't be feasible and regulations and cost would make it impractical.
On the negative side of the governments 3 billion dollar announcement the other day was the little two paragraphs in the body of the release which causes concern:
As well, companies seeking contracts for small solar projects recently had their plans stalled because there is not enough capacity on the electricity grid. Roughly 20,000 farmers were awarded contracts to place solar panels on their property. But this month, about 1,000 of them were informed that the province currently lacks the transmission capacity to move forward with their projects.
Mr. Duguid said the government has made some changes on how it communicates with small solar providers. But it was not clear whether he thought the onus was on the government to ensure these players could get access to the grid or the companies themselves.
Not too sure what this may mean for S.E.T. as far as the very large ground mount market they are relying on in rural Ontario. I am attempting to find out the company's view on that.
Any thoughts, anyone?
GLTA