Need to know????

[Timothy J. Smith]

I am familiar with these 10kw systems that are advertised in Ontario and looking at all the information if someone had the $80, 000 to invest its a great deal. You agree to purchase this system, lets say you re mortgage your house to do so and now you have a $160 000 mortgage (just hypothetically) . you purchase and install sign a 20yr contract with Ontario power authority that hydro will pay you 80 cent kwh for an income of lets say $13 000 annually to be on the safe side then you are making $1080 a month. Give yourself a $1000 mortgage payment at 6% your house will be payed off in 20yrs. your mortgage free for the next 20yrs. This sounds like a good deal to me, and one i may take advantage of.

[cboyd]

Originally Posted by Brian A. MacNeish

There were always voices in the wilderness saying we weren't paying the true cost of electricity. But since they weren't mainstream and in the press (green groups, Tree huggers,etc) but nobody listened to them!! Mega-projects buy VOTES......I call these " Monuments to our huge longterm debt"

We just got the provincial GST bumped up 2% yesterday in the budget by the new NDP governmant here......and I'm glad we did. Hope these guys make us "bite the bullet", which the last conservative gov didn't. They reduced the tax by 2% while the debt went up. They bought us with our own $$$$$......reduce taxes when we really shouldn't but h-ell we need the votes at any cost......just the anecdotal "bottle of rum" in another form.

About 3 elections ago, the NDP (I usually vote NDP or Liberal) tried the Conservative trick of promising a tax decrease also. That immediately meant I would not vote for them. BTW, the Consrvatives did get in but soon announced they would not be giving us the promised decrease......That premier didn't hang around for long!!!

Another BTW: Checking the political history of Ontario, I notice Conservatives ruled during the explosive growth period from 1950 to 1985 and another 7 or so years since 1985. It was during the 60's to 1985 period that most of your mega-generating capacity was built or begun building. Why didn't they tell the truth?

Our Ontario Hydro bosses make in excess of $1,000,000 a year, hydro owned helicopters to fly them to cottages in musoka so they don;t sit in traffic with the peons (peons that pay their 7 figure wages)Even when they leave they get free buck for life in excess of what you and I will ever see combined. I suppose that's the true cost of hydro. My father worked for them, years ago, it was a 5 hour drive home on friday, he was home at noon and paid until 5 oclock every weekend, I think when he retired in 1980 he was around $19 hr. plus all living and travel expenses. Paid min 55 hours, cannot remember him working a full week but never missed a full pay. Union of course, never get away with that in the real world. True cost of hydro....maybe. I think you get my drift.
Ontario and Alberta were Conservative run for many years, they were the economic hubs of Canada, 8 years of Liberal government and we are 24 billion deficit and now considered a "have not" province. Sask. finally smartened up 2 years ago and voted Conservative now jobs are appearing, soon a "have" province and that province of about a million people will help support our failures in Ontario until we smarten up again and get rid of the worst premier ever. On July first we will see the single biggest tax increase Ontario has ever seen, they are also talking about metering private wells and charging us for water I spent $10,000 to get at. I'm not sure how many inspections you can do in a day Brian to cover taxes, we are taxed at almost 60% now, how much more can we pay?

[cboyd]

Originally Posted by tsmith8

I am familiar with these 10kw systems that are advertised in Ontario and looking at all the information if someone had the $80, 000 to invest its a great deal. You agree to purchase this system, lets say you re mortgage your house to do so and now you have a $160 000 mortgage (just hypothetically) . you purchase and install sign a 20yr contract with Ontario power authority that hydro will pay you 80 cent kwh for an income of lets say $13 000 annually to be on the safe side then you are making $1080 a month. Give yourself a $1000 mortgage payment at 6% your house will be payed off in 20yrs. your mortgage free for the next 20yrs. This sounds like a good deal to me, and one i may take advantage of.

I hear you Tim, it looks great. But where does the 75 cent per kwh loss come from? It just looks like another carbon credits kyoto scheme. If you have the funds to do this, put in your own system for $30,000 and pay your mortgage with the old hydro bill money. Get rid of the dirty buggers for ever.Don't get me wrong, I love alternative energy, I just want it to be real and sustainable

[rreed1]

Only in Canada EH??

[Michael Larson]

Originally Posted by rreed1

Only in Canada EH??

The German gov pays appx. $0.50/kW produced for putting up solar panels.

Makes the payback pretty nice for those having land to put them on.

Of course the taxpayers are the ones getting screwed providing the subsidy.

Edit: New info

I guess that plan is now changing. Let the whining begin.

Germany to slash solar panel subsidies
Wed Jan 20, 2010 12:24pm EST


(Reuters) - Germany on Wednesday slashed subsidies for solar power in a move to ease the world's largest solar market toward free competition, drawing howls of protest from panel manufacturers.

Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen set out a 15 percent cut in so-called feed-in tariffs for new roof-mounted solar power from April, confirming figures reported earlier by Reuters.

Frank Asbeck, head of Germany's biggest solar company by revenue, SolarWorld, said the cuts were unacceptable.

"The drastic short-term reduction of the tariffs in the German renewable Act will have significantly negative consequences on the German solar industry," said Marko Schulz, board member at Q-Cells, one of the world's largest makers of solar cells, told Reuters.

The move was also criticized by Bjoern Brenna, chief financial officer at Norway's Renewable Energy Corp (REC), Europe's largest solar company by market capitalization. Roettgen said that the tariffs for solar energy generated from open field and farmland sites would also be cut from July, by 15 percent and 25 percent respectively.

Utilities currently pay about 39 euro cents in feed-in tariffs per kilowatt for solar power, about eight times as much they pay for conventional power, and industry experts expect the planned cut to speed up the shakeup in the industry.

Additional cuts of 2.5 percent will be made from 2011 if installations exceed 3,500 megawatts (MW) in the previous 12 months, according to the plans.

"There will be changes. We want to introduce the free market and not provide existence guarantees for participants. It'll be a boost for technology," Roettgen said in Berlin.

Since Germany's new center-right coalition government was elected in September, the solar power industry has expected cuts to the country's solar aid, prompting installers to rush to build projects before they are announced.