The announcements about green jobs in Ontario just keep coming as the
Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) program gears up. This week
Siemens Canada announced that it would create 50 jobs at its Burlington manufacturing facility by getting into the solar energy market. The Canadian division of the large multinational energy and healthcare company will begin producing Photovoltaic (PV) inverters in Burlington. Production is to begin ramping up immediately, with the first inverters ready for delivery by November of this year.
The move takes advantage of a provision of the FiT legislation that requires local manufacturing and technology to be used in new solar installations under the program. "Siemens' goal is to help our customers setup Solar PV installations which meet the requirements of the Ontario government's recently announced FiT program," said Siemens VP Joris Myny
in a statement.
The provincial government, for its part, hoped for just this sort of local-industry boosting when it put forward the legislation -- not just creating a new market for green energy in the province, but building Ontario as a major green energy industrial centre. "We welcome Siemens' investment, which will help Ontario companies meet domestic content requirements, a very important component in developing the solar industry here in the province," said Sandra Pupatello, provincial minister of economic development.
The FiT program pays producers who feed the electrical grid with renewable energy premium rate guarantees for 20 years.
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: DL Leslie, Director of Media Relations, Siemens Canada
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