Summerside solar panel plant on ice

A plan to bring a $100 million solar panel manufacturing plant to Summerside has been cancelled because of a lack of funding.

Ross Beatty, president of Solar Source Corp. — the Ontario company behind the idea — says talks have broken off with the province and Ottawa over money for the project that would have eventually employed 500 people.

One year ago, Beatty partnered with Jamie Ballem, a former Island Conservative energy minister, and with a company from India called HHV, which has been making solar panels for 40 years.

They spent the last year negotiating with the province and Ottawa for $50 million, but couldn't strike a deal.

"We were involved to the tune of 50 per cent. We were looking for support, in the way of loans, repayable loans with regular interest rates. No gifts were requested," Beatty said Friday.

"I believe that everyone we talked to liked it very much. It's a big ask. It's a big nut to crack. I know that, and I think everybody else knows that. And, at the end of the day, it just wasn't there."

Now, Beatty is looking at locating the plant in another province — possibly New Brunswick.

Neither Beatty nor P.E.I. Innovation Minister Allan Campbell would say how much financing the company requested from the province and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

"We were certainly prepared to be part of a package with the federal government, the city of Summerside and the province," Campbell said. "But it's my understanding the proponents couldn't put the package together and, unfortunately, they're not going to put the plant on P.E.I."

The decision is a disappointment for Summerside Mayor Basil Stewart.

" Well, I guess I'm surprised. But when you're around this business for a while, things fall out of the sky that you can't see coming," he said.