Becoming a greener citizen through solar power could mean more green in your wallet.
In hopes the community will embrace solar energy, the Town of Banff may soon see incentives for residential and commercial property owners who go green.
The Town held a Solar PV (photovoltaic) System Tour at Town Hall on Saturday (Oct. 4) where some attentive Banffites heard and asked about solar power in the mountain town.
Although the incentive program hasn’t been officially approved by council, Chad Townsend, environmental coordinator for Banff, said council has been “very supportive” of the notion.
At a Town of Banff regular council meeting in September, Townsend suggested to councillors that $300,000 be taken out of the municipal environmental reserve for the program.
The incentive program proposal would not directly offset upfront costs, but pay out over a seven-year contract period based on how much electricity the owner’s system is producing.
Townsend said solar energy is a very possible and very accessible technology and the Town is diligently working on ways to make it more financially viable for Banff.
“The situations are all a little bit different depending on roof orientation, shading and their annual consumption, but solar is possible on almost every property in town,” Townsend said.
The issue is expected to come before council for a third time in a more detailed form by November and incentives could be available in 2015.
In the past three years, solar panels have been placed on the roofs of buildings around town, including 72 on Town Hall, which is the largest photovoltaic panel installation in the Bow Valley and generates approximately 17,109 kilowatts (kW) annually – about the equivalent of powering at least three homes in Banff per year.
“Those have been environmental projects, but they have also been demonstration projects … we’ve learned from the data that we’ve gathered from all of the installations and now have a pretty good idea of the solar potential in Banff and it’s probably our best renewable opportunity,” Townsend said.
Banff Community High School has 50 panels installed on its roof, which generates approximately 12,000 kW annually, and the 14 panels on the Wolf Street Washroom generate approximately 3,000 kW per year.
Cost benefits for users would depend on how much energy the household consumes and how big the solar system is as to whether it would generate electricity savings, said Townsend.
“What we don’t see here is where electricity is generated … it’s part of this provincial grid that’s primarily non-renewable energy, and fossil fueled generated, so we have this opportunity here that could be made more financially viable if the Town is involved, at least at this point in time,” Townsend said.
“In time we expect solar prices to go down and energy prices to go up and then it would be more financially viable, so this is sort of an interim subsidy.”
Doug Webb, vice-president of operations at Decentralised Energy Canada (DEC) – a national non-profit energy technology accelerator and matchmaker that works with new and emerging technologies – said the panels can produce more than people use and can be used to offset annual electricity costs.
A three kW system installed on a roof in Calgary costs approximately $11,500 and over a lifetime is anticipated to save the average homeowner $15,000 to $21,000, according to Canmore-based KCP Energy.
Webb spoke about Alberta’s first Green Energy Doors Open program, which occurred at 20 locations across the province, including Banff and Canmore this past weekend.
“All (the programs were) showcasing various energy saving projects,” Webb said. “We’re excited with what’s happened this year and the number of people that have expressed an interest, like the Town of Banff, to showcase some of what they’re doing, and primarily what they’re doing with solar.”
Webb said by 2015 they hope there will more than double the 20 showcases and that there will be more opportunity within Banff, whether that’s from the Town, commercially or residentially.
In related news, Bow Valley Power announced on Oct. 1 it would enter a contract with the City of Red Deer for the sale of EcoLogo certified green power. EcoLogo is power produced from green, renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and hydro.
Red Deer will offset approximately 10,420 tonnes per year of CO2 emissions that would have otherwise been created by fossil fuel energy.
