PV solutions provider builds 583kW PV plant in Prince Edward, Ontario
Hamburg / Toronto / Prince Edward County, 27 November 2013 – Conergy continues to support the solar energy industry in Canada, specifically the FIT Program in Ontario by completing a 583 kilowatt photovoltaic power plant on a local commercial building in Prince Edward County. PV solution and service provider Conergy acted as the general contractor for the project, engineered and constructed the project, supplied the components and was responsible for the planning and implementation.
“This project is milestone for Conergy in Canada as the largest rooftop EPC project completed to-date for Conergy under the Ontario Feed-in-Tariff program,” said Jared Donald, President of Conergy Canada. “It shows our strong market position in the country, where we were awarded the honor of “Distributor of the Year” in 2012. Ontario remains a very attractive market where Conergy expects continued growth despite the changes in Ontario’s FIT rates.”
The solar system consists of approximately 2,500 Conergy ON solar modules and is expected to produce more than 700,000 kilowatt hours of clean solar energy for the commercial office and storage building annually. The solar installation will reduce the commercial building’s CO2 emissions by more than 550 tons annually. That’s the same amount of CO2 sequestered by 411 acres of forest land each year.
This project is the first in a series of EPC projects that Conergy intends to construct, coming from Conergy’s own development portfolio as well as the ones of Conergy’s local partners. “Our entry into the development and EPC markets in Canada is a natural progression from our historical B2B distribution business and aligns with our extensive global large project experience” said Anthony Fotopoulos, CEO Americas of the new Conergy holding company. “The new FIT3 rules and pricing are requiring companies in Ontario to find innovative ways to find cost efficiencies in order to effectively compete – our focus on EPC and development will help ensure that Conergy and its partners are able to thrive throughout these challenging market changes.”
PV as a cost effective and predictable energy source in volatile electricity market
The Feed-In-Tariff was introduced by the Ontario government in 2009 under the “Green Energy Act” to promote the renewable energy industry and create employment throughout the province. Despite the provincial government’s efforts, there are still disproportionally high fluctuations in electricity costs in the Ontario energy market. End consumers can only ensure stable costs by taking their energy generation needs into their own hands. These commercial building tenants are experiencing energy independence first hand and will benefit from stabilized, predictable, secure and reliable energy produced by the solar energy system on the building roof.
The commercial business in the building on which the Conergy plant is located will quickly receive the benefits of clean solar energy because the building owner will see about an 18% return on their investment and break-even after only 3.5 years. This makes solar panels on commercial and residential buildings a very cost-effective alternative to electricity from the grid.
