Solar PV Farms
Rising energy costs, carbon emissions, air quality, and water conservation, are enhancing interest in solar energy. In Europe, Asia, USA and Canada, governments are providing incentives to encourage the use of solar to provide cleaner and more environmentally sustainable sources of electricity. Green Soldiers Inc. is focused on developing clean solar energy projects in the Province of Ontario, under the Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP) and the new Feed-in Tariff (FiT), to be released this summer of 2009, both developed by the Ontario Ministry of Energy and the Ontario Power Authority (OPA).
Ontario has good solar photovoltaic potential - the same resource that provides clean energy for over 25 million acres of farmland. Ontario also has a sophisticated electricity infrastructure and a growing demand for clean, reliable electricity generation. Under the RESOP and FiT, Green Soldiers will pay all the costs of building, maintaining and operating its solar farms, earning its revenue from sale of electricity through the OPA.
What our projects look like and their local impacts
Each solar project has a maximum size of 10 megawatts AC(MWac) and is connected to the local electricity grid. Each installation is aimed to gather maximum sunlight using elevated dual-axis trackers with installations spread over approximately 100 acres of land. The elevated trackers allow the farmland to continue being used as light-grazing for sheep, goats, or similar farm animals.
Photovoltaics? Tracking?
Photovoltaics allow for direct conversion of light (photo) into electricity (voltaics). Most commercial solar cells use a special form of crystalline silicon to convert sunlight to electricity. Green Soldiers will acquire solar photovoltaic modules and systems specifically designed to responsibly, reliably, and inexpensively deliver solar electricity on a large-scale. Dual-axis sun-tracking systems have been chosen as the base structure because they can provide an increase of up to 40% in photovoltaic potential using the same panels and balance of equipment.
Benefits of solar electricity in Ontario
Solar energy has a variety of benefits and advantages because it uses renewable, pollution-free power from the sun.
- Each 10 MW project is estimated to result in reduced CO2 emissions of up to 400,000 tonnes (compared to coal) during its first 25 years of operation - about the equivalent in CO2 as produced by 50,000 drivers.
- Possibly even more important, over the same period this also saves over 1.1 million cubic meters of water. This is enough to provide water for 50,000 humans (at the minimum 55 litres/day needed for drinking, cooking, cleaning) for more than a year.
- Solar farms add to the reliability of the provincial electricity system because they produce larger amounts of electricity on hot, sunny summer days when electricity demand reaches its peak in Ontario because of the load added by air conditioners.
The future of solar electricity in Ontario
Technological breakthroughs combined with rapidly advancing engineering and government incentives are allowing the international solar industry to grow rapidly. Global production of solar panels has increased from less than 80 MW in 1995 to more than 2,200 MW in 2006. The cost of solar power is falling as a result of the economies of scale and innovative engineering practices resulting from this dramatic growth. Germany, Japan and the United States are among the countries with significant installation volumes that result from favorable solar policies and a mature industry infrastructure. Germany, for example, installed 960 MW of solar capacity in 2006. Historically, the Canadian solar energy market has been primarily in off-grid applications, including navigational aids, construction and road signage, radio repeaters and vacation properties. The Canadian solar market (primarily Ontario) is now more focused on supplying clean electricity for residential, commercial, and industrial use.