Yellowknife (Sep 06/04) - Solar energy is not an option in the North unless governments begin to subsidize greener forms of energy, says one industry member.

On the surface, solar energy would seem to make sense above the 60th parallel. Northern winters are long and dark, but our summers are filled with sun.

Can't we just take the extra sun from the summer and store it for the winter?

But panels alone only allow for the gathering of energy -- meaning, use it or lose it -- which is no help during the dark winter months when people use the most energy.

"Your maximum pay back for the solar panel is the time of the year when you have the minimum consumption," says Mac Maidens, area superintendent for the Qikiqtaaluk region at Nunavut Power Corp.

The only way to store energy, Maidens says, is by purchasing a special battery which can cost upwards of $20,000.

And solar panels themselves are expensive.

A panel to power a single family home can cost between $2,000 and $3,000.

Maidens looked into powering his single family home using solar power.

He found that after spending more than $20,000 on the panel and battery, the battery had an expected life of 20 years and the payback period, meaning time taken to break even, was 25 years.

"You'd have to have a commitment to the green power system above and beyond your wallet to accept that," Maidens says.

For this reason it's hard to find a Northern dealer that sells solar panels.

Midnight Sun Energy in Yellowknife used to sell them, but no longer does.

EMCO Frontier Mining, also located in Yellowknife, sells a few through a company in Vancouver.

"The biggest request we get is for people living out on the lakes. It's a back-up for their generators most of the time," says Meredith Wilson, a branch administrator at EMCO.

The real problem with green energy stations is that governments have not chosen to subsidize them, Maidens says.

For example, energy derived from diesel and hydro sources is heavily subsidized for the first 700 kilowatt hours under the current pricing structure in Nunavut and the NWT.