“Plenty of rooftops for everyone,” says Sun One CEO

Tim Anderson, CEO at Sun One Energy, Inc., told Etopia News this afternoon that “there are plenty of rooftops for everyone,” as his and other companies vie for roof space for installing solar energy-generating modules throughout the Canadian provide of Ontario under that jurisdiction’s recently implemented Green Energy Act and feed-in tariff program.

He doesn’t envision a bidding war for clients over price since the owners of potential sites all know that aggregators can “only pay so much” and still make money under the province’s innovative system of paying for renewable energy through 20-year contracts that guarantee purchase of indigenously-produced renewable energy.

His own company, which he founded 18 months ago after a successful career in real estate development, already has two million square feet of roof space under contract and has deals for another five million square feet pending. Working with local contractors through affiliated offices throughout Canada’s largest province, Sun One is focusing its efforts on commercial properties that can support solar deployments in the 125 kW to 1 MW range.

Snow is not unknown in Ontario but, according to Anderson, Sun One’s financial calculations account for solar production downtime due to those conditions. Also, he said, the company is working on various technical means to mitigate the effects of such contingencies.

The Green Energy Act and the feed-in tariff that it establishes will be subject to a 24-month review in the fall of 2011, and Anderson is not expecting that examination will involve any drastic curtailment of the program. “We’re going full-speed ahead,” he said.

In fact, according to the Sun One CEO, based on calls he’s been getting from as far afield as British Columbia, he expects other Canadian provinces and some jurisdictions in “the states” to start adopting similar feed-in tariff policies themselves within two years.

In Ontario itself, he says, the feed-in tariff program “is very successful and is becoming more so,” leading to increases in renewables manufacturing and job creation. He says Sun One is currently negotiating privately to raise the capital it needs for these projects.

Because Sun One was in the market before the passage of the Green Energy Act, it already had a “competitive advantage,” he said, and has been gaining additional clients mostly through “word of mouth,” and the occasional press release. The company is in discussions with solar module manufacturers about building local facilities, which will help it meet Ontario‘s “domestic content” levels of 50 percent now and 60 percent in 2011, as required under the province’s Green Energy Act.

For more information, visit Sun One Energy, Inc., at http://sunoneenergy.ca/.