June 30, 2016 – Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) says it will offer 936 long-term contracts for 241.430MW of small-scale renewable generation, including solar, wind, hydroelectric and bioenergy projects. These contracts are the result of the latest procurement under the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program, known as FIT 4.

FIT projects have an installed capacity between 10 and 500kW and are connected to local distribution systems. As was the case in previous application periods, most of these contract offers are for solar PV projects, many of which are located on industrial, commercial, institutional or municipal rooftops.

Over the coming weeks, contracts will be offered to:

• 907 solar PV projects for 232.258MW,
• 14 bioenergy projects for 3.45MW,
• 6 onshore wind energy projects for 3MW,
• 9 waterpower projects for 2.722MW.

Of these, IESO says 96 projects (representing 41.45MW) have Aboriginal participation, 413 projects (representing 67.26MW) have municipal or public sector entity participation and 186 projects (representing 60.24MW) have community participation.

The complete FIT 4 contract list is available HERE.

A summary of projects with Aboriginal, municipal and public sector and community participation is available HERE.

The IESO received 1702 FIT applications in total, of which 1197 applications—representing about 336MW—passed the completeness and eligibility review conducted by the IESO under the supervision of an Independent Evaluation Monitor.

New in FIT 4 was the opportunity for applicants to gain priority points by electing to reduce the base price available in the FIT price schedule by one of three optional tiers. Of the successful applications, 52% chose to apply for price reduction priority points, representing all three available price reduction tiers. Price reduction selections will be taken into consideration in the program price review and will influence the price schedule for future FIT procurements.

IESO notes this FIT program, enabled by the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009, is “North America’s first comprehensive guaranteed pricing structure for renewable electricity production”.

The FIT 5 procurement is expected to begin by November 1, 2016. Draft FIT 5 documents will be available in the coming weeks for review and comments. Click HERE for more information.