With Coal on the Way Out, Ontario Turns to Renewables

ABB and its consortium partner, Bondfield Construction, announced on Nov. 5 that they have won an order from Canadian Solar Solutions to supply a 100 MW turnkey photovoltaic (PV) solar project for the Grand Renewable Energy Park in Haldimand County, Ontario, southeast of Toronto.

Ontario is in the final stages of a decade-long plan to eliminate all coal facilities in the province by the end of 2014. Samsung Renewable Energy and partners expect to invest $5 billion to create a 1,369-MW green energy cluster of wind and solar resources that will help replace some of the lost generation. One of the first of these developments includes the 100-MW PV project. Canadian Solar Solutions is the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the plant.

“We are delighted to work with Canadian Solar Solutions on the country’s largest solar PV plant and to support Samsung’s visionary renewable energy initiative,” said ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer.

Once fully operational in 2015, the PV power plant is expected to produce 165 GWh of electricity each year, enough to power 13,750 Canadian homes. It will also contribute to a cleaner environment by displacing an estimated 162,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

According to the International Energy Agency, 267 MW of PV capacity was installed in Ontario in 2012, a 70% increase on the previous year. ABB has been a major player in the expansion and has been awarded orders to deliver more than 90 MW of utility-scale PV plants in Ontario since September 2012. Worldwide, the company has delivered more than 50 turnkey PV power plants.

—Aaron Larson, associate editor (@AaronL_Power, @POWERmagazine)