Revised Policy Document Forbids Class 3 and Organic Farmland
By Graham Dyer, Farms.com
The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) launched the next phase of the province’s Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) program. The program was first made available in 2009, with very little changes made up until now. This is not to be confused with the ‘sister’ program – the MicroFIT program, which has seen lots of changes and adaptations. The OPA released a new document on Aug. 10 2012 called “version 2.0” and one of the major changes was made to on-farm solar projects.
The most notable change affecting farmers wishing to apply for a FIT project on their farm is a new regulation regarding land classification types. The version 2.0 policy document has tightened limitations for solar projects and solar farms will no longer be allowed on Class 3 or organic soils. This change is in addition to Class 1 and 2 agriculture soil types that don’t allow ground-mounted solar projects.
Other changes were made to project priorities. The OPA said in a statement that applications will be “prioritized with points awarded based on project type, listing points for community participation, aboriginal participation, or public university, publicly-funded school, public college, hospital or publicly-owned long-term care home participation or where they are a host. The new point’s system also takes into consideration factors such as municipal support, aboriginal support, project readiness. Of course, available grid capacity for the project based on existing electrical infrastructure remains a substantial challenge in many areas. For more information – we recommend that people carefully review the details on the OPA website.