infrastructure : Innovation + Job News

Ontario has been making a concerted effort to develop its clean energy sector for a number of years. Now a new venture will help that sector take its innovations around the world. This month the provincial government, in partnership with MaRS Discovery District, announced the creation of the Clean Energy Institute.

"The overall goal," says Jonathan Dogterom, the practice lead for cleantech at MaRS, "is to be able to put a bit more of an economic development focus on energy technology."

Which is to say: the institute's key objective will be to help the community of clean energy innovators that has started to cluster here by creating new export opportunities that will allow them to expand their businesses in foreign markets.

"Energy represents a huge market around the world," Dogterom says, "and we have some of the best innovations in energy technology."

We don't, as of yet, have the international presence to match.

The project is still in the very early stages of development. MaRS and the Ontario government will be reaching out to industry stakeholders in coming months to get input into the project; they also expect to add some private partners as the Clean Energy Institute takes more concrete shape. Their immediate goal: develop a detailed plan for setting up the institute over the course of a year.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Jonathan Dogterom, Practice Lead (Cleantech), MaRS

Last week Telus announced that it would be making major investments in Ontario over the next three years: $650 million, which would support the creation of more than 900 jobs. This week the company explained what that would mean for the GTA—and it's very good news. Of that Ontario investment, $280 million and more than 600 new jobs are coming to the Toronto region.

"The positions are to help keep up with increasing client demand for Telus services, as we bring the world's fastest wireless technology 4G LTE  to Ontario," Telus's Elisabeth Napolano told us. "We need more people to service those customers." This demand comes from mobile subscribers who are seeking to do more with and on their phones: web browsing, video streaming and the like. Wireless demand is exploding as customers become used to treating their phones as mobile computers, using correspondingly more data on the go.

4G is the latest iteration of mobile communications standards, which allows for high speed Internet access on mobile devices. (Specifically, according to Telus, this means peak download speeds of up to 75 megabits per second and an average of 1,225 megabits per second.) 4G is currently available in select cities across Ontario; the just-announced funding will beef up this coverage and expand its range—the goal is to have 95 per cent of Ontarians able to access the 4G network by the time Telus completes this round of upgrades in 2014.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Elisabeth Napolano, Telus Media Relations

"It's the biggest project we have done to date, and the second biggest in Africa," a slightly rushed-sounding Daniel McCormick tells me over the phone—understandably, since he's having a rather busy day.

McCormick is a managing partner of Siginik Energy, which just announced that it has signed a deal to provide solar energy to Ghana, one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa, and a nation seeking not just new energy sources but renewable ones. The deal will see Siginik build a 50-megawatt ground solar installation, from which the Electricity Company of Ghana will purchase power for a 25-year term.

Siginik, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Toronto-based Episolar Inc., is "a full turnkey solar energy provider," says McCormick, and also one of the beneficiaries of Ontario's Green Energy Act. That act was passed in 2009, and McCormick says that "it created a labour force that is highly skilled."

Ghana is hoping to draw on those skills to help meet its own energy needs, which are substantial and growing. To help the country expand its power sources, Siginik will be hiring both abroad and here at home—about 50 full-time, part-time and contract positions in the Toronto area, says McCormick, ranging from engineering consultants to components providers. Some of those hired here will also work in Ghana to train local workers.

Recently Ghana's Parliament passed a Renewable Energy Act; the country has set a target of obtaining 10 per cent of its power from renewable sources by 2020.

Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Daniel McCormick, Managing Partner, Siginik Energy

As recently reported by Yonge Street, work has now begun on the Athletes Village for the Pan Parapan American Games on the waterfront. The project is as much an employment story as it it a develoopment story. The construction, handled by EllisDon, will create 700 direct jobs, according to Infrastructure Ontario's Mandy Downes.

"Currently there are already 50 workers onsite," Downes says, "carpenters, engineers, supervisors and security. At the peak of construction, the project will employ 700 in construction." Those are just some of the 5,200 jobs the Ministry of Finance estimates the project will "create and support" directly and indirectly.

The Athletes Village will transform part of the waterfront, adding more than a thousand new residential units as well as a streetcar line and a residence for George Brown College after the games in 2015.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Mandy Downes, Infrastructure Ontario

Hydro One, Ontario's public electricity generation company, is overhauling three Toronto-area transformer stations as part of province-wide updates to 80 per cent of the generating system.

The Leaside, Hearn and Manby transformers will be completely rebuilt by 2013, in a move a spokesperson for the utility says will enhance the environmental sustainability of the plants. "All three projects will be more reliable and efficient because Hydro One is replacing old equipment and technology with new equipment. The upgrades to all three projects will also support future renewable generation connection," writes Tiziana Baccega Rosa of Hydro One's media relations department.

The reconstruction will create approximately 65 direct jobs during the construction phase, as well as offering apprenticeship electrician opportunities.

Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Tiziana Baccega Rosa, Hydro One