A Renfrew farm family's solar nightmare

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Mel and Lynne Langton borrowed nearly $40,000 and signed a contract for a 10-kW solar system on their property in 2010. Thus began more than 18 months of wrangling, rule changes and bureaucratic confusion with the supplier, the Ontario Power Authority and Hydro One

by DON STONEMAN

In June, Renfrew County farmers Mel and Lynne Langton finally found a way out of a maze of bureaucracy and obfuscation as they tried to recoup nearly $40,000 they had borrowed for a solar project that went off the rails. But the end was far from satisfactory for the couple. The Langtons figure they are nearly $20,000 out of pocket.

For more than a year, they had been making payments on a purchased solar system that was sitting in the installer's warehouse. The installer was insisting the Langtons pay for storage of the panels.

In October of 2010, the Langtons signed a contract with Ottawa-based Clearly Solar to build a 10-kW tracker solar system on their property. A representative of another solar company had already acquired for them a conditional offer to supply solar power to Hydro One at 80 cents a kW. The Langtons paid Hydro One to bring lines to their unserviced property on Sturgeon Mountain Road in the old Township of Westmeath and borrowed more than $37,000 from Farm Credit Canada to make a down payment on the $68,000 solar panel project.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, says Mel Langton, who also runs a popular annual truck and tractor pulling competition. He figured the solar system would be his retirement income. "I don't have a pension. I farm and I work for myself. We have this land. This is a great idea. It is great for the environment."

Hoping to save on costs and to move the project along, Langton installed the base and mast himself, pouring about 11 yards of concrete in December of 2010 in preparation for a panel installation in March.

The Langtons say they were counting on a representative from the solar company to set everything in motion. They never dreamed that a potential money generator would turn into a money pit instead.

In March of 2011, when the panels were scheduled to be installed, they learned that the Ontario Power Authority had lost their solar contractor's Dec. 9, 2010, application for a connection. (OPA still doesn't acknowledge that such an application was ever made.) When their solar installer re-applied, the Ontario Power Authority, which grants leave to connect FIT and microFIT projects to power lines, told the Langtons that capacity for renewable energy in their area had been filled in September of 2010, before they even signed their contract to purchase the system.

It was in the early winter of 2011 that the term "constrained applications" became part of the solar industry's lexicon. "Constrained" means that solar projects can't hook into their local hydro distribution system because of problems with capacity.

Mel Langton says two large Feed-In-Tariff projects have taken up most of the local feeder line capacity. One is a solar farm, the other a dairy operation with "a million dollars' worth" of panels on a barn roof.

The Langtons maintain that the Clearly Solar salesperson, in his site report, had inadvertently searched for capacity on a substation that didn't service the Langton's property.

Tim Butters, communications advisor, issues management, for the Ontario Power Authority, says a rule change having to do with constrained applications was issued in February of 2011. "The OPA also advised applicants to not purchase anything related to their project until they had contacted their local distribution company to ensure connection availability."

The advice came too late for the Langtons, who had committed months before. In a July 2011 letter sent to Langton, after he lobbied through his MPP, Hydro One Networks explained that "total generation must not exceed seven per cent of the annual line section peak load on F class feeders. The total generation limit for this feeder has already been reached."

The OPA's seven per cent rule is controversial. The solar industry says that a 15 per cent limit is the rule in Europe and elsewhere. Nevertheless, Hydro One insists the lower limit, based upon an American standard, is necessary to maintain its lines and service to all customers.

Better Farming tried to contact the Canadian Solar Industries Association to ask about its efforts to lobby for a higher "penetration rate" on constrained solar systems. Through a public relations person, the new president, John Gorman, declined to grant an interview in the expectation that rules governing the solar industry would change shortly.

Jim Cummings, CEO of Clearly Solar, which supplies the solar equipment to the Langtons, blames OPA and Hydro One. He responded by email to a telephone message from Better Farming. "No one had an inkling that grid constraints would be even a remote possibility. In fact, the OPA had written in their legislation a 'right to connect' for microFIT projects. . .  People can be forgiven for going ahead with their projects after having gone through the proper procedure and received their conditional contract from the OPA."  He described the connection as "just a formality."

In a letter, Clearly Solar's lawyer claimed that the salesman was related to the Langtons and made "personal promises." Mel Langton replies that the salesperson was "Lynne's niece's husband," but nevertheless worked on Clearly Solar's behalf.

The sales person has since left Clearly Solar, which takes no responsibility for the issue. "I'm unable to discuss specifics of the Langton's case as there is a legal process underway," Cummings wrote in an email in May. He added that the Langtons "are victims, along with many other individuals and businesses in Ontario, of the way the OPA and Hydro One have mismanaged the connection of microFit projects."

An August 2011 ministerial directive from Energy Minister Brad Duguid spelled out options for constrained projects. One was to move the project to another property. Mel Langton tried to do that, but complains that the rules kept changing. At one point, he says, moving to a leased property was acceptable. Then the rules changed and they would have had to purchase a property and prove ownership.

They also considered buying a lot in the nearby village of Cobden to install their solar project. But the bureaucracy held up the change. The Langtons were unable to access their OPA account because it had not originated with their email address. "They will not talk to you in person. They only communicate via emails," Mel Langton says. He describes the system as "a nightmare."

The couple even had to prove ownership of their Sturgeon Mountain Road property before they could try to move the project.  They were finally able to access their OPA account by providing the Authority with a deed proving they were the property's owners. But time had run out and in early April the rules changed again.

"The rules are, you can't change your address, and you can't change your location without OPA giving you the authority. And you can't get on your site to ask for that," Lynne Langton says, adding that it took from February until early May to get access to their account.  "It was very frustrating. So we lost the opportunity to move the project."

In the meantime, the Langtons were negotiating either to get their down payment back from Clearly Solar, or recover the solar panels Clearly Solar was holding for them and charging for storage. The Langtons figured they deserved $26,000 back. Clearly Solar wanted to charge them an additional $10,000 for storage of the solar panels since 2011 in addition to the $37,000 down payment.

Joining a co-op by May 31 was the only option left to them under an April 5 ministerial directive.

In mid-May, the Langtons were working with another solar company to get control of their panels and move their project into a co-op in southern Ontario. Unless they were able to arrange that, they would lose their 80-cent-a-kW contract that makes the project worthwhile. "We would just like our money returned so that life for us could become normal again," a weary Mel Langton said in May. "I have this $37,000 loan sitting there that I pay on every month."

In June, the Langtons and Clearly Solar finally came to an agreement and the Langtons picked up their solar panels from the Clearly Solar warehouse on June 20. They paid no fees for storage, but did not receive any part of the $37,000 back either. Langton estimates that the base for the system, already installed on the Langton property was worth "a couple of thousand dollars."  Other parts, such as inverters, had already been returned to the manufacturer or were never delivered. The Langtons say their contract with Clearly Solar was for 300 kW panels, but the serial numbers indicate that they received 295 kW panels.  

Mel Langton says Clearly Solar paid $24,000 for the panels, about $2.35 a watt, but today they are worth only $16,000 or $1.34 a watt when they will be installed in a "solar garden" near Picton. "The market has changed," Langton says.

He notes also that the fees that Hydro One will charge for hooking up at the solar garden are 10 times what they were for hooking up an individual micro-FIT system. So the nightmare and grief might not yet be over. BF