A Canadian-Chinese partnership has ordered the construction of a solar PV panel assembly plant in Hamilton, Ontario. Together, Hamilton-based JNE Consulting and Chinese ply-silicon manufacturing company, Daqo New Energy, will invest an estimated $5 million in this assembly plant, scheduled to go online in 2012. Company execs hope the plant will help satisfy the growing demand for solar panels made possible by the Ontario Power Authority’s FIT and microFIT programs.

Another Success Story for the FIT and MicroFIT

Because the plant is in Hamilton, the panels will qualify as “locally produced,” thus satisfying the FIT’s and microFIT’s domestic content requirement. While Japan has started a WTO dispute because of this requirement, Daqo has simply decided to produce panels in Ontario and reap the benefits of the province’s expansive growth.

Ontario’s Green Energy Act has helped the province become a hub for green technologies. The Feed-in tariff (FIT) program and its spinoff for smaller projects, the microFIT program, have encouraged local and international companies, as well as individual consumers, to invest in cleaner, more sustainable ways of producing energy. In fact, over the past several months, Ontario has attracted over $1 billion in private sector renewable energy investment and created over 1,400 construction jobs.

Solar Training Essential to Benefit from New Green Jobs

Projects like the one conceived by this international partnership would not be possible without the proliferation of solar PV installations arising from the FIT and microFIT programs. Because skilled workers are needed to install these solar panels, the Ontario population benefits from unprecedented employment opportunities in the clean energy domain. However, proper solar training is necessary to increase the likelihood of landing one of the many new green jobs cropping up throughout the province. However because there is no shortage of solar training programs in Ontario, it is useful to use accreditations such as the ISPQ standard to verify a potential school’s quality.