Genesis Place Recreation Centre may experience an energy savings of approximately $100,000 per year, once a project to install solar panels on the facility’s roof – approved Sept. 17 by Airdrie City council – is completed. “That facility stood out for us right away,” said Jason Atkinson, director of operations distributed generation with ENMAX, who said the company was recently contacted by the City to look at options for installing solar panels at City facilities. “Facilities like Genesis Place are a great fit for solar, just the way the local power grid works,” he said, adding the building's expansive roof is also ideal for solar panels. This project will be the largest commercial rooftop system in the country, according to Atkinson, and the City could harvest as much as 1.4 million kilowatt hours in the first year. “We don’t put solar in areas where there’s going to be shading…just to say we have a bigger system,” he said. “We right-size the system to make sure the harvest is there.” The solar panels will offset 30 per cent of the facility’s annual power consumption, according to Atkinson. The resulting annual greenhouse-gas reduction will be approximately 916 tonnes, he added – equivalent to taking 194 vehicles off the road. Coun. Candice Kolson asked if the panels would stand up to the heavy hailstorms Airdrie often experiences. “Obviously, we all remember the big one [in 2016] that took out siding and other things. We had 30 sites here in Airdrie – we didn’t lose one,” Atkinson said. “It’s a tempered glass – it’s very strong. In the factory, they shoot a golf-ball-sized hailstone at about 80 kilometres an hour [at the panels].” The panels have an expected lifespan of 30 years, he added, and the total energy consumption savings to the City could top $3 million during that period. A timeline for installation has not yet been determined, but Atkinson said the next steps involve ENMAX working with the City to look at which solar designs will be most suitable for this application. Now that council has approved the project, the City will purchase the system at a cost of about $2.06 million from ENMAX on a deferred payment plan. Grant funding from the provincial and federal governments will cover approximately $1.54 million of the cost, leaving the City to fund the remaining $514,140 through a 1.5 per cent 15-year loan from ENMAX, according to Shannon Shindeler, City manager of treasury. Council gave unanimous approval to a motion to amend the 2018 Capital Budget in the amount of $2.06 million, with the proposed funding sources.
