Dear editor:
An invitation by municipal staff to attend a Solar Project Open House on March 9 was attended by about 25 people.
It appears Summerland has obtained about $6 million in federal funding to build a solar farm, along with battery components, to make Summerland one of the few communities in BC to have its own source of electricity from solar voltaic panels. Two sites are being investigated on acreage owned by Summerland near Prairie Valley Road.
This is great news and hopefully will reduce the cost of electrical power to our residents – eventually.
I have a few thoughts on this:
The hours of sunshine we get has been estimated at 2000 hours annually. This is a generalization. I have my own solar system which comes with a graphic readout every 10 minutes. Direct sunlight, even at the best of times is sporadic – every time a cloud passes between the sun and the panel, energy production is significantly reduced.
It is suggested that residents might want to invest in the purchase of some of these panels so that their rebate might be even more substantial. This is a good idea and I hope that locals would want to “buy” a panel or two perhaps at about $1000 per panel.
I wonder why it is that there are only about half dozen Summerland residents who have taken the initiative to install solar panels on their own homes? There are many homeowners who could easily afford a dozen or more panels.
I would like to see municipal council take the initiative to introduce regulations that make it mandatory (as Germany has) for any new home or any new home renovation to have solar panels installed based on the square footage of the building — for example, perhaps one solar panel for every 250 square feet of living space. Those large developments (for example, our Senior Village) of past decades should also have mandatory solar panels installed.
I hope more people take an interest in this project as I can’t see anything but a very positive result from it.
Frank Martens
Summerland