McGuintys government supports a generous feed-in tariff (FIT) for photovoltaics in the state. A domestic content requirement, as a part of the FIT, has seen the manufacturing industry also pick up in the populous Canadian state.
The Liberal party has been returned to office but will have to form a minority government, winning 54 of a 107-seat legislature, one shy of a 54-seat outright majority. This will lead to many challenges when forming government and getting legislation passed.
Significantly for the photovoltaic industry however, McGuinty has committed to maintaining the states FIT in the face of opposition from the challenging Progressive Conservative party. If the tories had been successful in their campaign it would have been probable that the FIT wouldve been vastly reduced or scrapped altogether.
The photovoltaic industry in Ontario had mobilized and released an advertising campaign urging support for renewables and the FIT.
In responce to the result, industry analyst Goetz Fischbeck has issued a statement to pv magazine saying that: "The outcome of the Ontario provincial election is a clear positive for the solar stocks. While we expect some downward adjustments of the overly lucrative tariffs granted under the current incentive regime the risk of a possible cancellation of the entire program has been averted."
Fischbeck, a renewables analyst with Germanys BHF-BANK also notes that Ontario is the second biggest photovoltaic market in North America and as such any changes to the FIT wouldve impacted the industry significantly.
The FIT is legislated for as a part of the Green Energy and Green Economy Act.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.