Meeting of November 4 2009
This evening we had many visitors,
They were: Paul van der Eyk, Nico Reyeneveld, Jisk Schuurmans, Jan Kappers, Floor Duizer, Arie Duizer, Alfred and Marleen Wolf, Arend vandenBurg, Klaas Dekker, Tony Goud, Lammert Brons, Chris Vandenberg, Michel Slech and our visiting Rotarian Tom Hemsworth.
Thank you all for coming to listen to Ehren Jones and Andrea Clark who presented the Canadian Solar company's Solar program.
Ehren thanked Rotary in general for giving him the chance to go on Rotary Youth Exchange to the Rotary Club of St Geoges Terrace in Perth, Western Australia. It was a life changing experience and he said it shaped his life into what he is now.
Ehren and Andrea work for Canadian Solar Inc. (Nasdaq: CSIQ)
Founded in 2001, Canadian Solar Inc. is a leading vertically integrated provider of ingot, wafer,
solar cell, solar module and other solar applications. Canadian Solar designs, manufactures and
delivers solar products and solar systems for on-grid and off-grid use to customers worldwide.
Canadian Solar is one of the world's largest solar module producers by manufacturing capacity.
With operations in North America, Europe and Asia, Canadian Solar provides premium quality, cost-effective and environmentally-friendly solar solutions to support global sustainable development. Canadian Solar is incorporated in Ontario, Canada with headquarters in Kitchener, Ontario. For more information, visit Canadian-solar.ca .
Ehren showed some slides and explained the perception of people towards Solar. First, people perceive it to be environmental friendly, and second, most think only people in outlying area's up North need it.
In the last 9 months the price of Solar panels dropped about 50%, and with the Ontario FIT (feed in tarif) program that started on September 24 2009, it makes it more acceptable (cost effective) for people to join up and install Solar panels.
Ontario FIT program promotes investment in renewable energy, increased conservation, create green jobs and economic growth in Ontario.
When you install Solar, it gets hooked into the grid system through the OPA (Ontario Power Authority) who guarantees the following payments: for up to 10 kW $0.802, from 10 to 250 kW $0.713, for 250 to 500 kW $0.635 with a price guarantee of 20 years on your contract. On average a 10kw system will cost about $85,000
There were so many questions from the attendees that the meeting continued in Ody's till about 10.30 pm.
For more info go to www.canadian-solar.ca
Thank you Ehren and Andrea, it was an interesting presentation.
President Erik presented some news about Rotarian home hosting in Vancouver with the olympics, see Erik if you want more info on that, also next week the nominations for the board will be presented.
Our fines master and incoming President Wim went easy on most people except Peter S got fined for parking in a VIP spot, Rama had 2 happy $ for a new car and 30th anniversary, Keith a happy/sad? $ for Judy forgetting him.
Wim also reminded us about the upcoming meeting on November 18, called: Discover Rotary!