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Solar installation produces electricity
Project at the Fort Simpson airport the largest in the territory
Roxanna Thompson Northern News Services Published Thursday, March 1, 2012
On Feb. 23, the Northwest Territories Power Corporation activated the solar panel installation at the Fort Simpson airport. Including 258 panels, the 91-metre structure is largest of its kind in the NWT. Spanning the length of an NFL football field, it is almost twice the size of the next largest solar panel array in the territory, said Myra Berrub, the corporation's manager of energy services. At solar noon on a sunny summer day (approximately 1:15 p.m. this time of year), the Fort Simpson installation will produce 60.6 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power up to 10 homes in the community, said Berrub. In comparison, the Greenstone Building in Yellowknife, the second largest installation in the territory, produces 33.5 kWh hours. Over the course of a year, the Fort Simpson installation will produce approximately 57,500 kilowatt hours, equivalent to shutting down the diesel plant for 2.5 days a year, said Berrub. The solar array, which is a demonstration project, was finished early and on budget. The territorial government funded the project with $700,000 from its Energy Priorities Framework. The corporation also added $60,000 to the project, said Berrub. The installation was scheduled to be finished by late March. "We're very pleased with how smoothly the installation went and we're already generating power," she said. SkyFire Energy from Calgary, which was the successful bidder on the project, began construction in the first week of January. "It was an exciting project," SkyFire Energy president Tim Schulhauser said. To Schulhauser's knowledge, the installation is the third largest in Western and Northern Canada and bigger than anything in Alberta. A solar radiation map of Canada shows the prairies are sunnier than the rest of the country and those conditions extend up into the territory, Schulhauser said, adding that Fort Simpson is an ideal location because it is close to the sunniest part of the territory. "It's one of the best places for solar in the North," he said. The Fort Simpson system will outperform equivalent-sized installations in some other places in the world, including Berlin, Germany and Tokyo. Germany has about 50 per cent of the world's solar power generation, while Japan has 10 to 15 per cent, said Schulhauser. The demonstration project will allow the power corporation to test how this technology performs in a Northern climate, said Berrub. The project will also determine if the installation will meet generation and maintenance expectations. The power generated is being fed into the village's electricity grid but it won't affect power rates for consumers, said Berrub. At this point, it is more expensive to run a solar installation than a diesel power plant but the costs continue to decrease, she said. The corporation is gathering research to be prepared for a time when the technology is more cost effective, she said. Although it is already running, the corporation is planning a ribbon cutting ceremony for the solar array in March.
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