Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 07/00) - Weledeh school is set to benefit from a relatively new form of technology.

A solar wall will be installed at the school, which is currently undergoing renovations, later this year.

The 200-metre square solar wall's purpose will be to warm up outside air before it's taken into the ventilation system.

Brian McCluskey, special projects officer at the Arctic Energy Alliance, explained how wall works.

"On the south side of the building, that's where it operates, because that's where you're getting the sunlight," McCluskey said.

The solar wall sits out about six to eight inches from the wall of the building.

"The sun coming down heats this up. It's a dark colour and absorbs the heat," McCluskey said.

"The ventilation system is going to start pulling in fresh air. What it's doing is pulling fresh air in from behind this hollow space behind the solar wall sheeting.

"This creates a negative pressure here, so you have a natural flow of air coming through all these little ducts, in these little slits in the solar wall. As the air is pulled through these little vents, it picks up the heat from the plate," McCluskey said.

"That heat is then transferred inside the building. And by the amount that's transferred inside, you've saved on the amount of heating that you have to do to bring it up to room temperature."

The solar wall at Weledeh will cost about $70,000 and, McCluskey said, will save the school about 8,700 litres of fuel (42 oil barrels) a year.

McCluskey said the school was able to take advantage of a federal government program called REDI (Renewable Energy Development Initiative), which can provide rebates of 40 per cent of the capital cost (up to a $50,000 donation).

"Without the REDI program, the payback would have been 10.3 years. And with the 40 per cent incentive that they get from the government, that's now been reduced to 5.8 years."

McCluskey said the solar wall concept started about 15 years ago but is just now making its way up to the NWT.

He said the technology fits in well with the objectives of the not-for-profit Arctic Energy Alliance.

Established in 1998, the alliance's goal is to help communities, consumers, producers, regulators and policy members work together to reduce financial and environmental costs of energy and utility services in the NWT.

Meanwhile, the superintendent of the Catholic School Board said the solar wall at Weledeh came about due to interest from the school itself and with energy conservation efforts on behalf of the board over the past few years.

"We just saw an opportunity to do something very, very different," Kern Von Hagen said.