FIT Revised Program Rules

[Mario De Castris]

Subject: FIT Revised Program Rules, Price Schedule and Standard Definitions


The Ontario Power Authority has posted new documents in support of the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) Program. These documents can be found on the Power Authority's FIT website at the following link:
http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/fit/Page.asp?PageID=122&ContentID=10181&SiteNodeID=1039&BL_ExpandID=

The documents include:
- Revised Draft FIT Program Rules
- Revised Price Schedule
- Revised Draft Standard Definitions

You are encouraged to review these documents to better understand the current design of the FIT Program.

Comments and feedback on the Revised Draft FIT Program Rules, Revised Price Schedule and Revised Draft Standard Definitions are welcome until Tuesday, July 28, 2009, and must be provided through the Submission tool of the Power Authority's FIT website. Please note that you must be registered and logged in with the FIT website to make a submission.

The Power Authority has scheduled a Web-enabled Teleconference for Tuesday, July 21 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. (ET) to provide additional details on the changes to the FIT Program Rules.

To participate in the Web-enabled Teleconference:
Toll Free Dial-in: 1-866-212-9078
URL for webcast: http://www.snwebcastcenter.com/event/?event_id=478

Participation details for this teleconference are also posted on the FIT website.

Please continue to check the FIT website for updates.



Ontario Power Authority
120 Adelaide Street West, Suite 1600
Toronto, ON M5H 1T1
www.powerauthority.on.ca

(Note: If you are subscribed to more than one Ontario Power Authority distribution list, you may receive a duplicate of this e-mail notification. We thank you for your understanding.)

[Rob Beckers]

Thank you for the update Mario! If you know of any more news coming from the OPA please keep us updated.

The one change that I was hoping for has indeed gone through: Now any PV system of 10kW and under is eligible for 80.2 cents per kWh. I have yet to read the entire contract text, hopefully that will happen in the next day or so.

What is still lacking is the FIT for small wind energy. Just like solar, small wind turbines are expensive per kWh for the vast majority of places (it takes an extraordinarily windy place to make a wind turbine of 10kW or smaller actually pay for itself within 20 years, and many small wind turbines do not even live that long). Right now the rate for wind hoovers just around the marginal cost per kWh of electricity in Ontario, making it more worthwhile to go with net-metering than the feed-in-tariff (electricity prices will go up in the next 20 years, the FIT will not).

-RoB-

[Mario De Castris]

Good morning Rob,

I received yesterday a newsletter that if I remember correctly talks about small wind and I think also said it was okay to riposte, I will try to posted as soon as I can also lots of reading.

Mario

[Rob Beckers]

Been reading through the new FIT rules: For generating facilities under 10 kW there seem to be different rules, called "microFIT". Presumably exempt of the various impact assessments (or so I hope). However, can't seem to find anything related to the microFIT program. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I'm curious, because of all the additional costs the OPA charges for their regular FIT program. That would quickly torpedo any project of a few kW of PV on a roof. There also was talk of having to pay to the local utility for distribution, seperately, from the 80.2 cents per kWh one receives from the OPA. Question is what happens to that under microFIT.

-RoB-