At Our Power we often get the question, "Why should I buy panels now when they will be much cheaper in a couple of years?"

This is certainly a logical assumption but in the context of the Feed-In Tariff and microFIT programs it does not apply.  The program is structured to deliver a return on investment, which is a function of the system cost and revenue; so when the system costs fall, the price the Ontario Power Authority pays for power will also drop.

Other jurisdictions with Feed-In Tariff programs have aggressively dropped their prices in lockstep with reductions in installed costs and the Ontario program is designed to do the same with regular reviews of the costs of solar power production.  The OPA's mandate is to ensure reasonable costs of power and they certainly won't get away with delivering windfall profits to private power producers.

As a result, waiting for installed costs of solar to drop will make no difference to your return on investment until solar power costs no more than power from the grid, a situation known as ‘grid parity’.  A study by clean tech research and publishing firm Clean Edge, predicts grid parity will be reached in most of the United States by 2015.  However, with a less favourable tax structure for solar and lower electricity prices, grid parity in Ontario will likely take longer.

In addition, large buyers eyeing utility-scale projects are gobbling up contracts for the early production from next generation solar manufacturers, meaning that product would not be available for residential applications until years after grid parity is reached.

With the strong Feed-In program in place, homeowners will only be missing out on revenue by waiting for new technology to come to market.