« Back To News & Events

December 03, 2007

Cultivating the power of the sun

HAYLEY MICK

From Monday's Globe and Mail

December 3, 2007 at 8:35 AM EST

Phillip Connolly and Marni Zatzman had pretty great lives in the city: exciting jobs in the film industry and a three-storey home in one of Toronto's most desirable neighbourhoods.

But on Saturday, the born-and-raised city slickers left their urban universe behind, packing up a cube van and driving 250 kilometres northwest to a rolling, tree-dotted landscape where they'll take up an old way of life - farming - by harvesting a futuristic crop: the sun.

"It's going to be drastically different," said Mr. Connolly, 42, a Gemini-winning art director.

Wooed by government subsidies and a strong desire to help save the planet, the couple have joined a small group of environmentally conscious souls who are investing big money in solar panels and selling the solar-generated energy back to a provincial power authority - knowing that their profits, if any, won't be seen for decades.

Independently owned solar farms - almost all located in Ontario because of a unique provincial incentive program - are assembled on the rooftops of city buildings, in abandoned fields or even roadside ditches.

In the Connolly-Zatzman case, about 500 solar panels will be assembled on a 140-acre property on the Bruce Peninsula, hugged on either side by Lake Huron and Georgian Bay.

The couple, along with their three-month-old daughter, Daniella, and two standard poodles, will live in a converted barn, tend a vegetable patch, enjoy smog-free air - and harvest solar rays using photovoltaic cells.

Their $1-million investment will generate $80,000 in energy sales per year, Mr. Connolly calculates. At that rate, they should see a profit in about

20 years.

Others are making similar long-term projections. Sue Dexter, a 63-year-old retired journalist and college instructor, used a loan to cover the $30,000 cost of putting 15 solar panels on the roof of her house in downtown Toronto.

"I make about $2.50 a day in the winter," Ms. Dexter said, laughing.

Still, on the first day the system began operating in July, Ms. Dexter awoke joyfully to a sunrise, like any farmer would.

"It seemed as though my existence was tied in a very basic and profound way to the movement of the sun," said Ms. Dexter, who later invited friends into her basement to watch the wattage tick upward on a machine called an inverter.

Both Mr. Connolly and Ms. Dexter are taking advantage of a government incentive program that in Canada is unique to Ontario, but modelled after programs in Germany and California.

Under Ontario's Standard Offer Program, the province's power authority pays 42 cents a kilowatt-hour for solar-generated energy, almost four times what it pays for wind power, and roughly seven times what consumers pay for electricity.

The price is supposed to lure investors by helping to offset the huge cost of the panels, which can be more than $2,000 each.

Since the program's launch 10 months ago, the Ontario Power Authority has approved 114 solar power contracts and dozens more are in the approval process.

The contracts (which are also available for other renewable energy projects, such as wind) last 20 years - the estimated time it'll take for sun farmers to see a net profit.

It's a daunting investment with many unknowns, Mr. Connolly says. Selling the couple's large, four-unit house in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood will help cover costs. He will also continue freelancing for the film industry, commuting when necessary to Toronto.

But the risks are worth it in order to save an ailing planet, Mr. Connolly said. He and Ms. Zatzman, 37, have felt urban "burnout," for some time, he said, but the main motivator for the project has been Daniella.

The investment is analogous to an RRSP, Mr. Connolly said - one they hope will benefit her future finances and the environment she lives in.

"I'm more nervous about not doing it," he said. "Because if everything keeps going the way it's going, then we're kind of screwed."

Green-inspired altruism is what drives most of the people who start up small solar farms, says Gregory Lang of Solera Sustainable Energies, a Toronto-based company that makes solar panels.

About 70 per cent of the 120 clients who hire the company each year are now selling energy back to the power grid, Mr. Lang said. Their backgrounds range from retirees with grown children to furniture shop owners.

One thing they all share "is a good credit rating," Mr. Lang said.

At a recent solar energy conference in Toronto, Kerry Adler, one of Canada's biggest alternative energy developers, said governments must pay sharply higher prices for electricity generated by the sun if the solar industry is expected to thrive in Canada.

Mr. Adler, chief executive officer of SkyPower Corp., said that even in Ontario, the price paid for solar energy isn't high enough.

Around 50 cents per kilowatt-hour would be necessary to make solar farms built at ground level economically viable, Mr. Adler said. Rooftop systems only become economical at around 60 cents, he said.

Other industry watchers agree.

"Right now it makes sense for the larger systems - but they still have to make it make sense for individuals," said Tom Astle, head of research at Toronto-based Dundee Securities Corp. Mr. Astle, who follows the renewable energy sector closely, points out that a similar program in Germany pays about twice what Ontario is paying.

Still, people are finding creative ways to offset the costs.

In a handful of neighbourhoods, including Toronto's Riverdale, homeowners have banded together to get group discounts from companies selling solar panels.

A project called the Sunpark Challenge, based in Guelph, Ont., and run by Sunpark Energy Corp., is building small sun farms across Ontario using $25 donations from individuals and businesses.

Asked if he thinks his major project is worth the bureaucratic muddles and expense, Mr. Connolly hesitates only for a minute.

"It's a little ... not crazy. It's a little complicated when you first look at it," he said. "But in the end, it's so simple."