Calgary’s Sustainable Energy Technologies, Ltd. (Sustainable), recently announced that it will provide its SUNENERGYTM PV inverters to two unnamed buildings in Ontario for solar energy projects capable of producing a total of 250 kW. Ontario is home to the continent’s first feed-in tariff (FIT) program for renewable energy, which pays high prices to owners of grid-tied clean energy projects and creates new opportunities for green careers and training classes. Sustainable chose not to release the costs of the projects or the names of the clients for reasons of competition and customer confidentiality, but it did say that the sites are recreational and educational in nature.
SUNENERYTM inverters are capable of running in parallel, a technique that allows for a greater variety of solar panel configurations, greater safety, and 5-25% higher overall output than traditional methods. According to the company’s CEO, Michael Carten, “Sustainable’s parallel system design now makes the additional safety of low system operating voltages a viable and economic option for developers and property owners specifying solar PV systems for larger buildings.” He adds, “This is especially important for… schools and recreational facilities, where we simply have a higher standard of care.”
Ontario Home to FIT, PV Training Classes, Green Careers
The unnamed recreational and educational buildings are not the first in the province to install PV systems. Students training for future green careers in classes at St. Lawrence College and visitors to the Quinte Sports Centre in Belleville will also witness the benefits of solar energy first-hand. These installations will earn revenue for the building owners for twenty years under the FIT. The primary stated goal of the program is to replace coal-burning power plants in the province by 2014, and according to TheStar.com, renewable energy projects like these are keeping pace with natural gas and nuclear in terms of new generation capacity brought online in the province.
Sustainable’s discreet agreement to provide its inverters to Ontario projects will enable the building owners to make the most of their solar installations using Sustainable’s patented inverter technology. This, in turn, will help deliver a higher return on investment compared to competing technologies, and ultimately, more clean solar energy for the province.
