Toronto-based EDF Energies Nouvelles Canada (EDF) announced earlier this month that its 12 MW St. Isidore A solar installation successfully joined Ontario’s renewable energy industry when it began operations in late December. St. Isidore is a community of fewer than 1,000 people located in Prescott and Russell County, east of Ottawa, the nation’s capital. The project created jobs for two hundred builders and career solar workers.
Ontario is home to the Ontario Power Authority’s (OPA’s) feed-in tariff (FIT) program and its companion, the microFIT, which deals with projects smaller than 10 kW. The programs create clean air by paying owners of participating solar, wind, and biofuel projects high rates to feed renewable power into the grid. It also creates alternative energy career opportunities for graduates of solar installation training courses and other “green” educational programs in the province. St. Isidore A will participate in Ontario’s Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program – which the OPA has since replaced with the microFIT – as will its companion project, St. Isidore B, which the company expects to complete by the end of 2011. The projects are EDF’s fourth and fifth to take part in the region’s solar industry.
Companies Create Clean Air, Jobs for Graduates of Photovoltaic Courses
EDF has operated in Canada since 2007. Its parent company, EDF Energies Nouvelles, is headquartered in France and operates in thirteen European countries and “coast to coast in North America.” The companies offer an integrated approach that ranges from project development through to power generation. EDF Energies Nouvelles’ subsidiary, enXco Service Canada (enXco Canada), will operate and maintain St. Isidore A. EnXco Canada is the new Canadian wing of San Diego-based enXco, a solar, wind, and biogas developer with more than two decades of experience in the renewable energy industry.
“Today marks another notable achievement for EDF EN Canada,” says Tristan Grimbert, President and Chief Executive of EDF and EDF Energies Nouvelles’ other North American affiliates. “We are proud to extend the economic and environmental benefits of solar energy to the St. Isidore community and fulfill our ambition to build high-quality solar projects in Canada.” With its ongoing construction of St. Isidore B, EDF will continue to create clean air and alternative energy careers for graduates of Ontario’s photovoltaic courses.
