The Cochrane Environmental Action Committee (CEAC) is sponsoring an information session on residential solar power on Saturday, Jan. 14 at Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre.
The CEAC is offering the session as an opportunity for Cochranites to learn about the myths related to solar power – capital costs, rebates, pay back periods and much more.
The lead speaker will be Valerie Atkinson, Residential Business Manager with KCP energy of Calgary. Atkinson with be joined by others representing a variety of perspectives on residential solar.
Questions like, ‘What is photovoltaic technology and how does it work?’ will be answered.
Tim Giese of CEAC stressed that these talks are not designed to convince people of the advantages of solar power or any of the other subject areas coming up, but rather to provide information to those with an interest in learning more about them.
Giese said he’s heard from people wanting to learn more about residential solar power. At a CEAC talk on electric vehicles in December, there were some solar panel aficionados sharing their stories.
“There were quite a few people there who’ve already installed panels, and they were just so enthusiastic,” Giese said.
One of those enthusiasts, at the December electric vehicle talk, was especially keen.
“He was a bit of a techno-geek, monitoring which power gets used, in which rooms, getting to the point where he was telling his wife, ‘Don’t run the dishwasher now, or don’t run the dryer,’ that’s how sophisticated he had it,” Giese said.
“I don’t think you need to go that far.”
Giese said he thinks there’s an appetite for information about solar power in and surrounding Cochrane, especially on acreages.
There is an abundance of sunlight in Alberta. In fact, Alberta gets more sunlight than any other Canadian province, and twice as much as Germany, which seems to be driving a significant portion of its electricity generation from solar power.
Home-based solar power allows residents to take energy into their own hands. For environmentalists, it represents a conscious decision to generate clean energy instead of consuming coal-fired grid energy.
At the residential level, photovoltaic (PV) materials and devices convert sunlight into electrical energy. A single PV device is known as a cell.
Solar PV panels are mounted to a sunny south- or west-facing roof to absorb energy from the sun. An inverter converts the direct current electricity from the panels into a usable form of electricity (alternating currents). Power is then transported through the building to anything that requires electricity. A performance-monitoring system then monitors the amount of electricity being produced.
Any electricity that is not used in the building is passed through the Calgary electricity grid and used to provide power to others in the community.
Utility electric rates include the cost of generating and distributing power as well as the cost to support infrastructure such as power lines. There is a mixture of fixed and variable costs among these charges. Solar power helps reduce all the variable costs on power bills. With solar, residents can control their own power generation and know in advance how much they will be paying.
Solar rates are typically cheaper than utility company rates, according to KCP. Twelve modules (3kW, a minimum installation size) will provide approximately 50 per cent of typical energy needs and cost around $12,000.
To provide up to 100 per cent of power needs for an average family home, 24 modules would be needed, costing about $20,000. Heavy users and large homes would benefit from installing 40 panels (10kW) which would run about $30,000.
The cost to install solar may be reduced by rebates.
This will be the second in the CEAC’s Living Sustainably series of presentations aimed at informing Cochrane and area residents of ways to live a greener lifestyle.
Upcoming talks in the series include wildlife awareness Feb. 25, growing your own food March 25 and Xeriscaping April 22.
For more information about the CEAC or the rest of the series, go to [email protected] or call 403-851-0562.
The Jan. 14 talk will be in the Earth Studio, 2nd floor at Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre, from 1 to 3 p.m.
The information sessions are free to attend, but registration is required at Eventbrite: eventbrite.ca/e/living-sustainably-series-residential-solar-tickets.
