SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Bill Mercer may work for anexploration company in the business of searching for rare earth minerals, but he's already found a way to generate dramatic energy savings.

Avalon Rare Earth Minerals camp manager Randy O'Keefe, left, with Bill Mercer, vice-president of operations. The two led an energy efficiency project that was recently given the 2015 Award for Environmental Excellence by the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists. - Karen K. Ho/NNSL photo

Mercer, the vice-president of operations at Avalon Earth Metals, implemented a renewable energy system a few years ago at the company's Nechalacho project. After he and camp manager Randy O'Keefe installed solar panels, batteries and inverters, the camp was able to reduce its diesel use by more than half, sometimes as low as a fifth of what they would go through before.

"Basically, we went from burning a drum of fuel, 45 gallons, in about 32 hours, to I'd say about 80 hours," O'Keefe said in regards to the generators. "We only had to turn it on three, four hours at a time to charge the batteries, the rest of the day we ran on the system."

Despite the costs of bringing in experts to the camp's remote location, the price of fuel for the company was $500 to $600 per drum. That didn't include the cost of transportation on Twin Otter airplanes, which could only fit eight barrels per trip.

With energy costs continuing to rise, Mercer and O'Keefe expect the savings to continue adding up.

When it came to funding, Mercer had the support of company president Don Bubar as well as benefiting from the GNWT's program for small installations like his, where they contribute 30 per cent of the cost. They estimate Avalon spent about $40,000 on the entire project.

Avalon staff also took the project on as a challenge. After completing their training on the system, O'Keefe said they started competing with each other about who could make a barrel last the longest.

The system's batteries are hooked up to the camp's generators, which resulted in a number of unexpected benefits. In addition to being able to switch the generators off and run the camp solely on the batteries, Mercer said they became a source of emergency power. He recalled a moment when he was at Avalon's camp, it was -40 C and the generator quit.

"Randy was able to switch the whole camp onto the batteries, work on the generator, get it running again and get the camp back to running off the generator," he said.

The renewable energy system's batteries also helped with the power needed to run the camp's 44-watt diesel heaters.

"I think that almost saved more fuel than the generators," Mercer said. "In the winter, anyway."

While the company is headquartered in Toronto, Mercer and O'Keefe were both in Yellowknife on May 14 for the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists' annual dinner at the Explorer Hotel. Avalon is also receiving the organization's 2015 Award for Environmental Excellence for their energy efficiency project.

After admitting it took a while to truly maximize the system in its first year of operation and that they wished they had purchased more solar panels, Mercer and O'Keefe emphasized the importance of Diversified Electric's Peter Green, calling the electrician key to the installation's success.

"There are very few people out there," O'Keefe added. "There's no manual for this."

They also had simple advice for any companies or individuals looking to do something similar.

Mercer said, "Plan out your wiring very carefully."

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