Rob Beckers
13th May 2012, 08:00
Here we are in the middle of May; the last MicroFIT contracts were submitted August 31st of last year. That makes it 8+ months of a non-functional (or dysfunctional as some would say) feed-in-tariff program. I don't even dare to mention the FIT side of things, where we have to go back to June 2010 to find a contract.
Meanwhile the fall-out is taking a hold: Many installers have gone out of business, and we see a number of our customers having a hard time to pay their bills (we are in the wholesale supply business). The large companies are abandoning ship as well, the past week Siliken closed its doors (they were/are a large multinational maker of PV modules with a plant in Winsor).
It is sad to see how something that could have been great is deliberately flushed down the tubes by politics and bureaucracy. At this point I have to assume that all the rhetoric, how the OPA and Ministry of Energy have the best of the industry at heart and want to create jobs, is just that, rhetoric. At best they are incompetent, at worst this is deliberate because the program has become a political liability. Take your pick.
Our trade organization, CanSIA, is not exactly without blame either. There has hardly been a word from them during all this time. It seems nobody wants to upset the delicate senses of the Ministry or OPA. Then again, here was I thinking that is what we are paying CanSIA to do!
It did not have to be this way, in fact, all the parties involved had to do is look to Germany and copy the good of that program. Over there they did manage to keep a viable program going for 12 years now, with gradually tapering rates that did not catch the industry by surprise, and without shutdowns of the kind we are seeing here. Message to the OPA and Minister: This is not hard to do! Hard is nuclear fusion.
Administering a feed-in-tariff and coming up with sensible rules is not!
Nobody, least of all me, would expect subsidized renewable energy forever. But shutting down a program for 8+ months cold-turkey, that had in effect just been started, has to be cruel & unusual punishment... :evil:
-RoB-
Meanwhile the fall-out is taking a hold: Many installers have gone out of business, and we see a number of our customers having a hard time to pay their bills (we are in the wholesale supply business). The large companies are abandoning ship as well, the past week Siliken closed its doors (they were/are a large multinational maker of PV modules with a plant in Winsor).
It is sad to see how something that could have been great is deliberately flushed down the tubes by politics and bureaucracy. At this point I have to assume that all the rhetoric, how the OPA and Ministry of Energy have the best of the industry at heart and want to create jobs, is just that, rhetoric. At best they are incompetent, at worst this is deliberate because the program has become a political liability. Take your pick.
Our trade organization, CanSIA, is not exactly without blame either. There has hardly been a word from them during all this time. It seems nobody wants to upset the delicate senses of the Ministry or OPA. Then again, here was I thinking that is what we are paying CanSIA to do!
It did not have to be this way, in fact, all the parties involved had to do is look to Germany and copy the good of that program. Over there they did manage to keep a viable program going for 12 years now, with gradually tapering rates that did not catch the industry by surprise, and without shutdowns of the kind we are seeing here. Message to the OPA and Minister: This is not hard to do! Hard is nuclear fusion.
Administering a feed-in-tariff and coming up with sensible rules is not!
Nobody, least of all me, would expect subsidized renewable energy forever. But shutting down a program for 8+ months cold-turkey, that had in effect just been started, has to be cruel & unusual punishment... :evil:
-RoB-