Solar panels for rink roof 'on the boat' from China

City officials are hoping at least one of Brockville's solar panel projects can be plugged into the provincial electricity grid by the end of the year.

The Feed-in Tariff (FIT) contract with the Ontario Power Authority is in place for the solar panel project at the Memorial Centre, as is the installation contract with Upper Canada Solar Generation and L.A. Knapp Inc., but the city is now waiting for Hydro One to complete a "Connection Impact Assessment" before getting the meters installed, said Lesley White, the city's manager of strategic initiatives.

"I hope that the metering is done (before year's end)... but that all depends on somebody else's schedule, not ours," she said Wednesday.
Along with Hydro One installing the meters that will determine how much power the rooftop project will sell to the provincial grid, local officials are also waiting for the panels.

Although the local firms have the installation contract, said White, the panels are being shipped here from China.

"They tell me they're on the boat," added White.

The $1.4-million contract is being funded by a combination of federal gas tax funds, a provincial grant and a Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) grant/loan program.

Similarly, city council on Tuesday approved a contract with Four-O-One Electric Ltd. worth $469,191 for the installation of a solar panel system on the rooftop of the Gord Watts Municipal Centre, as well as a $2,640 deal with the company for annual monitoring and maintenance.

That project will be funded by federal gas tax dollars.

The city had initially hoped to get moving faster on the solar panel projects, even budgeting partial-year revenue of $160,000 in 2010 from electricity sold to the grid.