With lots of snow still on the ground, spring feels quite a way off here at Gavin Lake, but the longer days and twittering birds are helping us limp through the end of winter.
Several of my last few articles have touched on solar energy, such as the parking lots in France now requiring solar panels overhead (collecting energy and shading cars at the same time). Gavin Lake has had solar panels on the washroom roof now for close to two years, so I thought it was time to revisit some ‘real life’ experience and report on how they are working so far.
The panels were installed in May 2021 and there are 30 panels (according to BC Hydro, an average home will install about 16 panels). The installation comes with a great app where you can track all your energy production in real time.
So, with on-the-spot reporting, at 4.8 degrees at 11:15 a.m. on March 03, Gavin Lake was producing about 7733 watts of power and has made 15.58 kWh so far that day. The day before we made 58.99 kWh total (it was sunny). For all of January and February, we made 367 kWh; I don’t remember a lot of sun this winter.
For context, the ‘average Canadian home’ uses about 30 kWh a day or 11000 kWh a year. America is about the same; in France it is 6,400 kWh; in the UK it is 4,600 kWh and in China around 1,300 kWh. This will include heat for many homes.
The best month in 2022 at Gavin was July, at 1560 kWh, averaging 50 kWh a day (almost the energy for two houses). Over the whole year, we made over 11000 kWh, equivalent to one North American home.
So how much have these panels actually saved? The current price of residential electricity for with BC Hydro is $0.0950 for the first 1350 kWh over two months (about 22kWh a day), then up to $0.148 for the next step, which translates into somewhere between $1,045 and $1,628 saved a year with our system. Scaling down the number of panels from 30 to 16 for a residential setting would mean $557 to $868 a year saved.
The solar energy created would also help ensure that you stay below the ‘step up’ threshold for any grid energy you do use. It is also likely that electricity prices will only go upwards into the future, increasing the savings.
Our web page also informs us that the energy produced/saved since installation is equivalent to 698 trees, 13.97 tons of CO2 not produced and 57,587 lights. This section is a bit scant on how this was calculated, so I will have to take this at face value.
In terms of maintenance and repairs, the system has been amazingly trouble free so far; just clearing snow off the panels and re-securing one panel to the roof.
For residential systems, there are grants and interest free loans available through Canada Greener Homes Grants Program, so I would encourage anyone to take advantage of these while they are available, research your options further and talk to the increasing number of local people with real life experience and then go for it.
For more information on Water Wise or Waste Wise and any of our school and community programs, contact the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society at sustain@ccconserv.org or visit the website at www.cconserv.org.
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