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Samsung leads major investment in green energy for Ontario

Ontario's existing Stone Mills solar farm

A consortium led by South Korean companies Samsung C&T and Korea Electric Power Corporation plans to invest CAN$7 billion in renewable energy technology for the Canadian province of Ontario.

The investment will fund the construction of four wind and solar power generation facilities with a total capacity of 2.5 GW, tripling Ontario’s current output from renewable sources.

The new facilities will comprise up to 2 GW of wind turbines and up to 500 MW of solar power providing around 4% of Ontario’s total electricity demand when completed in 2016 – sufficient for over 580,000 households.

The expansion of renewable energy in the province will be an important step along the way of realising its target of phasing out coal power by 2014.

The investment will also see the creation of four manufacturing plants in Ontario to produce wind towers, solar inverters, wind blades and assemble solar modules. As well as serving Ontario, the new manufacturing plants will also make and sell equipment to the US and elsewhere.

The project will create around 16,000 jobs during the construction phase, with around 4000 permanent jobs.

Samsung said the decision to invest in Ontario was taken because of its welcoming attitude to green energy. The other consortium members are Dongkuk Steel, and Satcon and Pattern Energy Group.

“Ontario is becoming the place to be for green energy manufacturing in North America,” said Premier of Ontario Dalton McGuinty at the launch yesterday.

For further information:
www.ontario.ca/
www.samsungcorp.com/overview/corp.asp
www.kepco.co.kr/eng/

22 January 2010

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