Canada has plentiful solar energy resources, with the most extensive resources being found in southern Ontario, Quebec and the Prairies.

Thanks to the Ontario FIT program, is the home of the largest solar farm in the world (as of October 2010). Located in Sarnia, Ontario, the 80 megawatt Sarnia Photovoltaic Power Plant can power more than 12,000 homes.

Ontario may become the leading Canada market for solar PV in North America in 2011, installing more than 400 MW of solar power. This would be nearly double that installed by California in 2010. With contracts on the books, Ontario is expected to reach 2,650 MW of solar PV by 2015.

Solar farms in Ontario are rushing to take advantage of the Ontario government’s Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP) which pays 42 cents per kWh of electricity generated from solar energy.

For RESOP to apply the size of the project must be under 10MW. In practice, to take advantage of economies of scale, commercial projects will be at or near this limit. This means that companies will be looking for parcels of land of at least 100 acres in order to get to 10MW. They need not have one piece of land that is 100 acres. Several parcels that are within a few km of each other that add up to 100 acres might do, but a single site would likely be less costly and thus preferable.

This rate of 42 cents/kWh is guaranteed for 20 years. In fact companies will be counting on this guarantee in order to make their projects commercially viable. This means that companies will be looking to buy land outright, or to lease land for at least 20 years, or even up to 40-50 years.

One of the first things that will have to be done before a project goes ahead is to ask Hydro One Networks to conduct a Connection Impact Assessment. Your land needs to be near that spare capacity for it to be considered for a solar farm. Solar Farm companies will be employing real estate brokers to help them find and approach landowners. Most likely, a developer will first buy an option to purchase the land.