July 4, 2013 – Ontario’s renewable energy economy continues to grow as the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) announced today it is offering 951 new Small Feed-in Tariff (FIT) contracts. These contracts represent 146.5MW of power, enough to power more than 21,000 homes.

More than 98% of the successful applications received municipal council support resolutions. Most of these contract offers are for solar photovoltaic (PV) projects, including 934 solar PV projects, 16 bioenergy projects and one waterpower project. In total, project developers are expected to invest over $750 million in the Ontario economy, and the projects are expected to result in 2200 jobs for Ontarians.

The projects announced include 46MW or 219 projects with Aboriginal participation and 27.8MW or 136 projects with community participation.

The OPA was authorized to offer up to 200MW of contracts to these applicants. The remaining 53.5MW of capacity will be added to the procurement target for this fall’s Small FIT application period.

The OPA had contracts for 1,706 FIT projects, representing 4,541MW. Of these, 616 projects had been completed and were delivering clean electricity to Ontario’s grid, with the rest in development.

“This is an important step as we continue to grow our clean energy economy. Ontario’s commitment to renewable energy is cleaning up our air and creating good, local jobs across the province,” said Bob Chiarelli, minister of energy.