A new solar array in Longview has made the village's municipal buildings electrically net-zero.

The project went live on Dec. 11 and provides power to all of Longview's municipal buildings.

It was headed up by Kirk Davis, a Longview Economic Development Committee member who made his house net-zero several years prior.

Most of the work went into securing funding and finding a provider.

They eventually settled on a Calgary-based company, SkyFire Energy, and secured funding for 40 per cent of the $240,963.60 project from the Municipal Climate Change Action Centre and Alberta Municipalities.

Photo courtesy of Kirk Davis.

As for the remainder of the cost, Davis says it'll pay for itself relatively quickly.

"We plan to have it paid off in about four of five years, our portion of the cost. After that, we'd be running off of free power."

They also had to clear the project with Foothills County, as the project sits on county land, though Davis says that wasn't as much of a hurdle as he was expecting.

It's located on a quarter section of land owned by the village, and there's room for more.

"We have probably three-quarters of the quarter section waiting that we can put more solar on, and we would be able to produce enough power for the whole village even when the main power fails."

The land it's built on is known as "brownfield," an urban planning term referring to land that's underutilized and may be environmentally contaminated, making it perfect for a project such as this.

As far as maintenance, it won't need much.

Snow is known to slide off these kinds of solar panels, though it's entirely possible it could stick and block the panels.

Even if that were the case, Davis says it's not cause for concern.

"We don't produce much in the winter anyway. Usually, it's cloudy, and we produce way more electricity in the summer than we use, so it levels out. Right now we're using more electricity than we normally use because it's winter, the furnaces are going and the lights are on longer. But then summer comes and buildings slow down, everybody's out more, and we produce a lot more power then."

It's been running for close to a month now, but a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on Jan. 8 to make things official.

 

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