CAMBRIDGE — ATS Automation Tooling Systems is well positioned to fend off competitors in the rapidly growing Ontario solar market, president and chief executive officer Philip Caputo said Tuesday.

With a manufacturing plant already established in Cambridge, ATS is ramping up its new Photowatt Ontario division at a relatively low cost without having to erect a new building, Caputo said during a conference call to discuss the company’s third-quarter financial results.

Also working in the company’s favour are its long-term experience in the manufacturing sector – its main business is designing and building automated production systems – and the fact it recently signed a three-year supply contract to obtain silicon used to make solar cells, he said.

Photowatt Ontario, which will offer complete solar projects, products and installations, has submitted a number of proposals to the Ontario government to qualify for its feed-in-tariff program which guarantees a minimum price for solar energy, he said. He expects the division to start producing revenue in the second quarter of 2011.

New competitors on the market include Kitchener-based Canadian Solar, which is looking to build a plant in Ontario to make solar modules, and a Korean consortium led by Samsung which inked a $7-billion deal with the province to build wind and solar farms across Ontario.

The fact that the province is financing a competitor is “not good,” Caputo said in response to an analyst’s question. On the positive side, 2,500 megawatts of the Samsung project will be devoted to wind power and only 500 to solar, he noted. “The good news is that it’s not primarily on the solar side, as far as we’re concerned.”

In addition, Samsung has made commitments over five years to manufacture components such as wind towers, inverters, blades and modules in Ontario which provides opportunities for ATS, through its automation systems group, Caputo said.

He said it’s too early to tell whether the solar market in Ontario will be better than the one in France, where ATS has had a plant for a number of years. On the one hand, the province’s decision to offer incentives and engage in relationships with companies is good, but on the other hand “maybe the pie got smaller.”

But, overall, he said, the market will be good. It’s just a matter of “degrees of good.”

When pressed on how much solar energy Photowatt Ontario would contribute to the market, Caputo would not be pinned down other than to say “it will be meaningful.”

ATS eventually plants to spin off its Photowatt Technologies division, which includes the French operation, into a separate company. Selling the company is one option, he said, but whatever course is taken, ATS wants to move quickly.

For the company as a whole, challenging market conditions and a reduction in feed-in-tariffs in France and Germany pushed revenues down to $138.1 million for the quarter ending Dec. 27, a drop of 42 per cent from $221.7 million a year ago.

Net income was $3.7 million or four cents a share compared to $15.8 million or 20 cents a share in the third quarter of 2008.

Revenues were $78.6 million for the automation systems group and $59.7 million for the Photowatt Technologies Group.

Despite the difficult market conditions caused by the current global recession, Caputo noted that ATS made money in the quarter and expects market conditions to improve based on orders in its automation systems group.