Ontario Received Nearly 500 MW Of New PV FiT Project Applications In 5½ Weeks

Nearly 500 MW worth of new renewable energy feed-in tariff (FiT) project applications were received by Ontario’s energy regulator in the five-and-a-half week time period when the FiT window of opportunity was last open. 5½

Altogether, 1,982 applications were received, totaling 493.71 MW of potential capacity — of this, 463 MW worth of the applications were for solar photovoltaic projects. The rest of the applications were for wind, hydro, and bio-energy projects.

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PV Tech provides more info:

According to regulator Ontario Power Authority (OPA), responsible for overseeing the Canadian province’s FiT 3.0 programme, it received a total of 1,982 applications for renewable energy totalling 493.71 MW of capacity in the period between 4 November and 13 December last year. Applications were for solar, wind, hydropower and bioenergy projects of between 10 kW and 500 kW proposed capacity.

The vast majority of PV project proposals received by OPA, 76.8%, were rooftop-based, 311.42 MW of capacity across 1,499 applications. A further 383 applications with a combined capacity of 151.85 MW were made for ground-mounted PV. Priority will be given to projects with Aboriginal, community, municipal and public sector participation.

New PV systems built onwards from the 1st of January 2014 will receive FiTs at the rates published in August 2013, with the next review of tariffs expected during the winter of this year. OPA will only be able to award FiTs for up to 123.5 MW of projects in this round of the scheme.

The OPA currently manages 2,608 projects, with a combined total capacity of 4,624 MW. The province has the stated aim of installing at least 10.7 GW of wind, solar and biomass capacity by 2021, and 20 GW by 2025.