Solar and Education in Toronto

• - September 15, 2014

Toronto’s Solar Schools projects is putting solar panels on 311 Toronto District School Board schools.   Nicknamed Solar Schools, the project received 311 contracts from the Ontario Power Authority as part of the provincial government’s Feed-In-Tariff program. When completed the project will generate energy equivalent to the amount used annually by approximately 4,250 households in Toronto.

Revenue generated from the solar panel installation will be used to fund school rooftop repairs and replacements. Over the course of the project, approximately 4.3 million square feet of school roofs will be repaired or replaced.

“Integration of growing amounts of on site, rooftop solar power –referred to as distributed generation – creates tough challenges for utility generation, transmission and distribution systems,” said Dr. Alexandre Pavlovski, President and CEO of Green Power Labs. He added “Based on our existing SolarSatData^TM technology platform for PV generation forecasting at the utility-scale level, we developed a new methodology and technology for high “electrical” resolution forecasting of distributed PV generation at the service transformer level to be integrated into any utility’s distribution management system. Our technology addresses a major visibility issue for our utility clients allowing them to better manage distribution generation for the benefit its ratepayers.”

Ontario’s Feed-In-Tariff program has continues to generate strong interest more than four years after the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) launched North America’s first comprehensive Feed-In Tariff (FIT) Program. During the most recent FIT 3 application window the OPA received 1,982 applications representing a total of 493.71 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity. Launched in 2009, the OPA now manages 2,608 FIT contracts totalling 4,624 MW – 878 of them in commercial operation totaling 1,147 MW.

For more information visit: fit.powerauthority.on.ca