Sixteen Banff businesses and residential homeowners were successful in a random lottery to be part of the municipality’s first-of-a-kind financial incentive program to plug into solar.
The Town of Banff hired independent auditing firm KPMG to conduct a random lottery in May for those interested in installing rooftop solar photovoltaic panel systems that produce renewable energy.
There were 47 applicants, and 16 different residential and commercial systems applications were awarded, including for Councillor Chip Olver and her family.
Chad Townsend, the Town of Banff’s environmental manager, said the production incentive program is the first of its kind for a municipality in Canada.
“We had no idea when we put this idea forward how successful it would be,” he said. “There was so much interest we needed to have a lottery.”
The Town is using $300,000 from its environmental reserve to fund the solar program.
The program will require qualifying property owners to install the solar system, and then receive production-based top-up payments over the next seven years.
Olver and her family were among those chosen to receive financial support in the 2-5kW category.
If the Olvers develop their 3kW system as planned, and it receives good solar exposure, they would receive approximately $300 per quarter in production support.
In advance of receiving applications, the Town’s legal counsel advised that councillors would be eligible to participate in the lottery, but if a councillor was successfully picked in the draw, there were some additional requirements, such as the effect of pecuniary interest on agreements.
The proposed agreement would also need to be approved by council before the agreement is signed by the municipality.
On Tuesday (June 9), council voted to approve a seven-year solar incentive agreement with the Olver family for a new PV system to be installed at their home.
Olver declared a conflict of interest for pecuniary reasons, left the room and did not vote or participate in the discussion.
“I think it is going to be a fabulous program,” she said after the meeting. “There’s so much interest in what we are doing here in Banff with this program.”
Applications will be accepted for Banff’s second allocation for the incentive program in early 2016.
More than 80 per cent of Alberta’s electricity is currently generated using non-renewable fossils fuels, primarily coal.
A solar PV system has no minimum requirement of hours to work, and will generate power even on cloudy days, as long as the panels are not shaded by trees or other structures.
Local research shows wind is not a viable way to produce energy in Banff, but solar potential across southern Alberta is high, especially when compared to solar leaders like Germany and Ontario.
