Renewables
Tina Baker is walkin' on sunshine
- Details
- Category: Alberta Renewables
- Written by Jim Bentein
Solar systems tested at Calgarian's home
Tina Baker has a sunny disposition — at least when it comes to shifting her home’s energy use to solar.
“I had a solar hot-water system installed in my house in February 2009 and I’ve noticed it takes less time to get hot water [from when she relied solely on a conventional hot water system],” says Baker, a senior business analyst with Calgary-based Enmax, who was one of a few dozen company employees who took advantage of a pilot program the company launched to test various renewable technologies.
The house, located in southwest Calgary, has an additional hot-water storage tank and she says the two have led to an embarrassment of riches.
“I’ve noticed that it takes less time to have hot water, and with the additional storage tank, we have a lot more of it,” she notes. “For the first time, I had to add cold water to cool my bath water.”
That test of various renewable technologies by company employees led to the decision by Enmax to launch a program next year aimed at leasing thousands of solar and micro–wind systems to Albertans across the province.
Baker, a vegan who has a strong environmental consciousness, says she agreed to test the solar water heater because it was an easy way to “walk the talk.” She plans to lease a solar photovoltaic (PV) system when they are offered by the company next year.
“I’d love to use solar PV because of my experience with the solar water system,” says Baker, who shares her house with her three-year-old daughter.
She says her home is ideally located for solar PV, since it’s on a corner lot and has a south-facing roof.
Aside from wanting to move to renewable energy as soon as she can, she says she and her daughter are practicing conservation.
“We [Canadians] don’t realize what energy hogs we are,” she says. “I’m using water differently. For instance, I don’t run the shower for five minutes before I use it and I have an efficient dishwasher.”
The 37-year-old Calgarian also has other energy efficient appliances in her home.
Baker says neighbours have asked her about the system and most seem interested in shifting towards the use of more renewable energy.
Surprisingly, despite Alberta’s less than tropical climate, it has the right conditions for solar use.
A report by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), produced about three years ago, concluded that solar PV actually works better in cold climates than in hot ones.
“Canada is a cold country, but our solar resource is better than Japan and Germany, which each have thousands of megawatts of solar,” said Yves Poissant, PV technology specialist with NRCan at the time the report was released. “Solar PV works better when it’s sunny and when it’s cold, when solar PV produces more output.”
That same department and others in the federal government also recently concluded that solar PV has more potential on the Canadian Prairies than in some of the hottest and sunniest areas of the world.
For instance, Regina was listed as having the sixth-best solar PV potential in the world; Calgary was seventh worldwide, with Edmonton also in the top ten in the world.
