Canadian Solar Inc. has announced that Guelph will be the location for its first module facility in North America. The facility is expected to create up to 500 jobs. This announcement comes on the heels of an earlier report that Siemens and Samsung are partnering to build a wind turbine blade manufacturing plant in Ontario that will create up to 900 direct and indirect jobs.

The proposed green tech plants are part of Ontario’s growing green energy industry initiative, the Green Energy Act. Several other companies have announced plans to set up or expand solar and wind turbine manufacturing facilities in Ontario as well. Ontario’s new clean energy economy is creating jobs in construction, installation, operations and maintenance, engineering, manufacturing, finance, IT and software.

Companies that want to secure clean energy Feed-in Tariff (FIT) contracts in Ontario must use a specified percentage of provincial products and services for of their project. The 694 clean energy contracts already announced are expected to create approximately 20,000 direct and indirect green economy jobs over the next five years and generate approximately $9 billion (£5.5 billion) investments from private sector sources. Cumulatively, the green projects will generate enough electricity each year to power 600,000 homes

Brad Duguid, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, says, “Ontario is celebrating two major milestones by attracting its first-ever wind turbine blade manufacturing plant and one of the largest solar module facilities in North America. Ontario is open for business and we look forward to welcoming more businesses as they invest in local economies and deliver a clean energy supply to Ontarians.”

Ontario is Canada’s leader in wind and solar capacity and is home to the country’s largest wind and solar farms.

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