Installed PV power

Canada's total PV power installed capacity increased by 31% in 2006 to 20.5 MW compared to 16.75 MW at the end of 2006. The 2006 domestic PV module sales volume totalled 3.74 MW compared to 2.86 MW in 2005 - an increase of 31% in the one-year period. The 2006 export PV module sales totalled 990 kW compared to 1.77 MW in 2005 - a 44% decrease from the previous year. Total PV sales in Canada (domestic and export) in 2006 were at 4.73 MW a 2% increase over the previous year. The growth of the PV market in Canada has been averaging 25% annually since 1993. In 2006, the largest module sales domestically occurred in the off-grid market (both residential and non-residential) with about 90% of market share. The remaining 10% attributed to sales in the on-grid distributed market.

Costs & prices

Module prices (weighted average) have gradually declined from CAD 11.09 in 1999 to CAD 5.36 in 2006. This represents an average annual price reduction of 9% over the 7-year period.

PV production

There was a 11% increase in manufacturing employment in Canada in 2006 (equipment, PV and balance of system products). The largest manufacturers are Xantrex, Carmanah, Day4Eenergy and ICP Global. In 2006 there were two additional module manufacturers to ICP Global that registered some level production. Together the 3 manufactures reported total PV module production of 2.35MW with maximum production capacity of 15 MW.Day4Energy and Centennial solar together produced some 2 MW of PV modules.

Public budget for PV

Total public budgets in Canada showed a slight increase of CAD 450,000 (6%) in 2006 over the previous year. This is due to large multi-year federal funding to the Solar Research Buildings Network as well as to a private sector project to develop and demonstrate high purity solar grade silicon.