Korean consortium invests in Ontario wind, solar energy – Yahoo! News
Korean consortium invests in Ontario wind, solar energy – Yahoo! News
OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) –
A Samsung and Korea Electric Power-led consortium will invest 7.0 billion Canadian dollars (6.7 billion US) on wind and solar energy in central Canada, the Ontario government announced Thursday.
“This is the single-largest investment in renewable energy in provincial history,” officials said in a statement, with some 16,000 jobs expected to be created by the venture.
The South Korean consortium aims to generate 2,500 megawatts of wind and solar power by building and operating wind and solar “clusters” throughout Ontario, tripling the province's output from renewable energy sources.
These will eventually include wind turbines that will generate up to 2,000MW as well as solar power facilities that will generate up to 500MW, by 2016, producing up to four percent of Ontario's total electricity consumption, or enough power for more than 580,000 households.
The consortium will also construct production facilities in Ontario to provide key components, such as blades, wind towers, solar modules and inverters.
And under the terms of the deal it is expected to encourage component suppliers to build manufacturing facilities in the province.
Ontario, Canada's economic hub and most populous province, has pledged to shut down all of its polluting coal-fired power plants by 2014 and boost its renewable power generation.
Critics of the deal, however, say electricity ratepayers will end up subsidizing the consortium with billions of dollars in government incentives paid for green energy generation.
