Ontario government agrees C$7billion renewables deal with Samsung consortium

CANADA: The Ontario government has signed a long-anticipated and controversial deal with a Korean consortium headed by the Samsung C&T Corporation that will invest C$7 billion over six years in renewable energy development and manufacturing in the province.

by Diane Bailey 22 January 2010

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The negotiations with Samsung have been one of the government’s worst-kept secrets since word of the talks leaked last November, prompting complaints over the special treatment the Korean industrial giant were receiving.

The deal includes the installation of 2000 MW of wind energy and the establishment of factories to produce turbine towers and blades.

The consortium, which also includes the Korea Electric Power Corporation, will begin installation of the wind farms and 500 MW of solar projects in 2012.

Construction will occur in five phases, with the first consisting of a cluster of 400 MW of wind and 100 MW of solar to be built in the Chatham-Kent and Haldimand County regions of southern Ontario.

The consortium will receive Ontario’s feed-in tariff (Fit) rates for the power, equivalent to C$0.135/kWh for wind and C$0.443/kWh for solar.

It is also eligible for an 'economic development adder' amounting to C$437 million over the lifetime of the contracts if it opens four factories to make wind and solar equipment within a set timeframe.

A tower plant is scheduled to start operations before the end of March 2013 and a blade facility by the end of 2015.