Starland County has been honoured once again for its efforts in solar energy.
Reeve Barrie Hoover, Economic Development officer Jordan Webber and CAO Ross Rawlusyk were in Calgary during the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association Conference and were honoured by Municipal Affairs with an innovation award for their farm based solar program.
“It is nice to get recognized,” said Rawlusyk. “I was very pleased to win the innovation award because we were competing with all Alberta. The big cities are in it and so are we.”
“It shows that municipalities are not afraid to take a risk.”
He explains the reason that it was successful with its submission is its partnerships.
The County collaborated with Bullfrog Power and the Municipal Climate Action Change Centre on the project, along with the farmers and municipalities in the area.
With an initial offering of 10 solar arrays in 2015, the program has continued to grow and area farmers are seeing the benefits of the program. These arrays are tailor fitted to the needs of the farms.
“Most of them are 10 kilowatts, but we do an analysis of their farm needs before we finish off the design of the project,” he said.
Today, farmers can do as much as 100 kilowatts. These arrays provide each farm’s power needs, and then contribute excess power onto Alberta’s power grid. The County has been actively lobbying to receive fair compensation for power diverted back to the grid at the time it is produced. They have made submission during the Alberta Energy Policy review.
Part of the project involves sharing their expertise.
“Jordan Webber has been working on a tool for other municipalities to learn how to do solar within their communities and what the processes are. It is a web based information tool. Our intent is that we can publish that with the practices we have developed so we are able to help other municipalities,” he said.
“We are getting more and more calls all the time both from individuals and municipalities that are interested at looking at solar initiatives.”
