Posts Tagged ‘PV’

Government Investment at Stratford Festival Supports Solar Energy Industry

Sunday, February 6th, 2011

Gary Schellenberger, MP for Perth–Wellington, recently announced that the world-renowned Stratford Shakespeare Festival will receive funding designed to help Ontario’s growing solar energy industry.  Specifically, the Government of Canada funded $246,750 to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival via the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund within the Department of Canadian Heritage.

This federal government funding will go towards paying for both the cost and labour involved with building an innovative solar energy wall at the famous Avon Theatre in Stratford –  another boon to Southern Ontario’s solar energy industry.  In addition, the funding will also pay for the festival theatre’s new heating purchase and installation.

“We know that the installation of energy-efficient equipment will help ensure the company’s continued success and further promote its environmental leadership,” stated James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages.

Funding Increases Alternative Energy Jobs and Demand for Solar Courses

Besides the obvious direct benefits to the festival, this funding will also increase the number of alternative energy jobs in Ontario.  Consequently, demand for green professionals who have successfully completed solar training courses in the province’s growing alternative energy job field will likely increase well.  However, schools like Ontario Solar Academy are able to train and certify solar PV installers in as little as five days.

About the Stratford Shakespeare Festival

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival offers superior live play performances to both a national and international audience.  Established in 1953, this world renowned festival has grown to become one of North America’s largest classical repertory theatre companies, prompting Moore to comment that his government was “proud to support a quality organization like the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.”

In response to this investment, Antoni Cimolino, General Director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival stated:

“We appreciate that the Government of Canada has shown interest in these less glamorous aspects of arts support, recognizing that they will allow us to reduce our carbon footprint. We strive to be a leader in the cultural sector and hope that our efforts to green our facilities will inspire other cultural organizations to do the same.”

All in all, the future is looking great for alternative energy jobs and the solar energy industry in Ontario.

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Ontario’s Solar Energy Certification Programs Show the US the Way

Saturday, February 5th, 2011

For years, Canadians have complained about US-based air-borne particulate pollution.  The special object of ire was Detroit, Michigan’s smokestack car industry and the exhaust “exported” to Windsor.  Now Canada, with Ontario’s innovative feed-in tariff program, is not only combating that trend but also leading the way into a new energy era.  Good fences no longer make good neighbours – one needs to share leading-edge solar economy technology as well.  “The times,” as Bob Dylan sang, “they are a changing.”

In the new year, energy leaders in Ontario, Canada shared information with their counterparts in Colorado some aggressive public policy concerning some of their innovative solar economic programs that have raised the sustainability bar, including feed-in tariffs, building and promoting electric car-charging stations, and new construction projects.  The ultimate objective is to create seamless energy grid infrastructure able to meet daily consumer needs and help generate alternative energy careers.

One challenge that Colorado has that Ontario does not is meeting resistance from the private owners of coal stations; in Ontario, they are publically owned.  Another challenge is cost – to collect one kilowatt-hour (kWh) of energy from rooftop solar panels costs about $0.35 compared to approximately $0.10 for electricity generated from fossil fuel.  To reach the stage of wide-spread acceptance, supporters of the solar economy must eliminate that cost differential.  Solar energy certification programs will accomplish that objective by creating a more knowledgeable public.  Alternative energy careers will blossom as the future economy flowers.

North American Cooperation Leads to Global Solar Economic Unity

With more Canadian provinces and US states on line collaborating, the entire energy ecosystem of production, distribution, and consumption will change for the better.  Will the political and economic synergy of these new energies lead to closer political unity?  We may imagine an organization that does not presently exist called Energy United that will fuel alternative energy political careers.  The possibilities are as infinite as the rich bounty of solar power itself.

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Research Reveals Animal Kingdom’s Solar Economy

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

According to a recent study, humans are not the only animals to take part in a solar economy of sorts.  While it may not attend solar training courses or pursue green careers, the Oriental hornet harvests the power of the sun for energy.

The recent findings were discovered by Israeli and UK researchers and published in the German journal, Naturwissenschaften.  According to the research, while hornets are usually more active in the cooler hours of the morning, Vespa orientalis, a species found across the Near East and India, performs its hardest work in the afternoon, when the day is hot.  The researchers have identified the reason for this: the insect harvests power from the sun using parts of its anatomy.

The research team, led by entomologist Dr. Marian Plotkin at Tel-Aviv University, tested the theory of the late Professor Jacob S. Ishay that the hornets have some anatomical method of harnessing solar energy.  They discovered structural elements of the insect’s exoskeleton that trap light, rather than reflect it, as well as a pigment in its head and body, called xanthopterin, that, according to Dr. Plotkin, transforms light into electrical energy.  “We assume,” she says, “that some of the energy is transformed in a photo-biochemical process, which aids the hornets with their energy demanding digging activity.”

Hornet Anatomy May One Day Boost Green Careers

The work of Dr. Plotkin and her team may one day lead to advancements in solar technology that could give the PV industry a leg up in the race to replace fossil fuels.  This could prove of particular use in regions like Ontario, which currently has a mandate to close all of its coal-fired power plants within the first half of the decade.  The provincial government’s plan has given birth to a rapidly emerging solar economy that creates, in addition to clean air and renewable power, green careers and support industries like solar training courses.  Thanks in large part to generous government incentives for renewable energy, Ontario’s PV training course graduates continue to help the province become a leader in solar power production.

Dr. Plotkin’s team’s research will help entomologists gain a better understanding of the ways that insects metabolize energy, but in the future, their findings may also give researchers in other disciplines, such as electrical engineering, insight into the ways that humans can more efficiently harness the power of the sun to meet their own considerable daily energy needs.

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Non-Profit Provides Food, Job Training, Green PV Energy

Friday, November 26th, 2010

Gleaners Food Bank (Gleaners) in Belleville, Ontario, announced on November 8 that it will now sell green energy to the province.  In the last two years, Gleaners, the Quinte area’s destination for individuals and families in need of food, information, job training, drug addiction prevention, and affordable housing, has made an effort to help the environment as well.  The organization’s latest green initiative is the seventy-two 15 kW solar panels recently installed on the food bank’s rooftop.  This installation will generate revenue from the more than 20,000 kW-hours of green electricity it will add to the province’s power grid each year.  The installation will also create temporary and long-term employment for Ontario’s certified solar workers.

The solar installation is one of several green retrofits Gleaners has made to the food bank building.  Over a year ago, the organization took part in the Veridian Energy Lighting Retrofit program, which helped Gleaners replace old lighting, heating, and cooling equipment with more energy efficient technology.  Later, the Ontario Trillium Foundation helped Gleaners install a better-insulated roof, and the non-profit added a rain harvesting conservation and solar energy organic system to the garden near the food bank’s warehouse.  The rooftop installation joins several other solar projects in the Quinte-Belleville region, along with hundreds of new projects creating green energy and jobs for certified PV workers across Ontario.

FIT, MicroFIT Help Create Green Jobs, PV Training Certification Opportunities

Ontario is home to North America’s first full-scale feed-in tariff (FIT) program.  The FIT and its companion program for projects under 10 kW, the microFIT, pay producers of renewable energy to tie into the grid.  The programs’ goals are to diversify the power supply and help phase out coal-fired power in the province by 2014.  In addition to clean electricity, it has also created a wide array of green jobs and educational opportunities like solar PV training courses.  The microFIT encourages homeowners to be part of the solution by paying them some of the highest rates for green energy – up to 80.2 cents/kW-hour for residential-scale rooftop PV installations.  The programs’ high rates allow projects like the Gleaners solar set-up to profit from progress.

“Hunger has no season and solar energy is the future of Gleaners sustainability,” says Susanne Quinlan, Gleaners’ Director of Operations.  “We decided to pursue solar energy to create a healthy and sustainable environment for residents and families we serve, and to help greatly offset power costs.”  Gleaners Food Bank will help both the environment and Ontarians for years to come, all under, and over, the same roof.

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