Solar Photovoltaic (pV)
ELECTRICAL POWER

Make a wise investment in Solar energy!

The Province of Ontario through it’s Green Energy Act and Feed in Tariff Program (fIt) now makes it a sensable investment to install solar PV
Guaranteed Government Contract with term of 20 years and rates of:
• Micro fit ...under 10 Kw system $.802 per kW
• FIt ............under 250 Kw system $.713 per kW Accelerated CCA
depreciation at 50% per year

COMPLETE TURN KEY SOLUTIONS
• Custom Engineering
• Custom Design
• Government Contract Administration
• Installation and Commissioning

The announcement in October 2009 by the Ontario government created a new market for Solar PV by providing an incentive in the form of a guaranteed 20 year contract for electrical energy provided by installations within the province.

The FEED IN TARIFF program or FIT for short encourages individuals and companies to install a solar PV system as a viable investment. Since the government guarantees to pay for electricity produced by Solar PV at a rate far in excess of the rate charged in the marketplace, the electricity is not used by the owner of the system but sold to the government for a profit and a viable return on investment.

Owners of excess land like farmers and owners of commercial buildings as well as institutions (collectively known as ICI) are prime buyers of these systems.

Care must be taken to insure several aspects of these installations not the least of which is roof integrity. As well the integration of larger solar systems into the electric grid has caused the government to create a sizable regulatory and administrative process for the installation of these larger systems.

Global Point Energy is very well positioned in people, process and engineering to offer turn-key PV solutions to our existing and future customer base.

Solar Cell Technology

A solar cell is defined:
A solar cell is a device that converts the energy of sunlight directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect. Sometimes the term solar cell is reserved for devices intended specifically to capture energy from sunlight such as solar panels and solar cells, while the term photovoltaic cell is used when the light source is unspecified. Assemblies of cells are used to make solar panels, solar modules, or photovoltaic arrays. Photovoltaics is the field of technology and research related to the application of solar cells in producing electricity for practical use. The energy generated this way is an example of solar energy (also known as solar power)

There are two types of cells on the market.

Thin-film solar cells

In 2002, the highest reported efficiency for thin film solar cells based on CdTe is 18 These CIGS films have been grown by physical vapour deposition in a three-stage co-evaporation process. In this process In, Ga and Se are evaporated in the first step; in the second step it is followed by Cu and Se co-evaporation and in the last step terminated by In, Ga and Se evaporation again.

Thin film solar has approximately 15% marketshare; the other 85% is crystalline silicon. Most of the commercial production of thin film solar is CdTe with an efficiency of 11%.

Crystalline Silicon

The highest efficiencies on silicon have been achieved on monocrystalline cells. The highest commercial efficiency (22%) is produced by SunPower, which uses expensive, high-quality silicon wafers.. Crystalline silicon devices are approaching the theoretical limiting efficiency of 29% and achieve an energy payback period of 1-2 years...

Government Incentives

The only significant current incentive for the installation of Solar PV is the FIT or Feed in Tariff Program instituted by the Ontario Government as part of its Green Energy Act.

Under this program the government will pay an owner of a Solar PV system a fixed rate for 20 years for electricity generated by the system.

MicroFIT

The microFIT program has less onerous regulatory requirements and is easily integrated into the electric grid. The payment rate for these smaller systems is $0.802 per kW.  Therefore a system just under 10kW has the best return on investment due to the economy of scale of the installation.  A microFIT installation can easily fit on farmland or a roof with 800 square feet of area.  Most barns and small commercial buildings would be suitable.