The sun's rays have begun to help heat the water used at Highland High School, in the Comox Valley. Courtenay-based Terratek Energy Inc. has installed four flat plate solar collectors on the school's roof. Those solar panels will be used to heat the water used for showers and other purposes.
"Basically it's a system to use the power of the sun to heat water for the school," said Comox Valley School District energy manager Fred McGregor."The whole idea is to … reduce our greenhouse gases and our costs. It's basically free energy from the sun." The government has required the public sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent over the next decade. Solar hot water is just one way the district is working to meet that goal. "This is one of many projects we're working on," he said. "There are other lighting projects and so on."
Two more solar hot water projects are still in the wings, one for Cumberland Junior and another at Isfeld Secondary. The district will spend a total of $250,000 reducing energy use over the next year, said MacGregor. But the solar system, which cost about $22,000, won't cost the district a penny. The entire tab is picked up by Solar BC, which has a mandate to encourage people to be less reliant on fossil fuels. The provincial government has invested $5 million in the initiative. Based on the average sunlight in the area, the panels will produce about 24 gigajoules of energy per year. According to Natural Resources Canada, that represents about one quarter of the energy used by an average Canadian household in 2007. The system is the first commercial-scale solar hot water project system for preheating domestic water in the Comox Valley.
"It's a great educational piece for letting the students become familiar with these kinds of technologies," said Terratek principal Scott Fleenor. "Later on we're looking at possibly putting a monitoring system on so the students can actually see what the system is doing."
Read the full story on: Comox Valley Echo or SolarBC.