November 14th, 2007
Solar in the city
By Dale Duncan // No Comments
Cross-posted from Eye Daily.
Last week, the Government Management Committee (usually one of the more boring committees of council) approved a strategy to get more solar panels in the city. The idea is to put out a Request For Proposals for an energy firm to install solar thermal systems (i.e. solar panels that use the sun's energy to heat water) on up to 20 city buildings. The city will simply provide the buildings, while the firm pays for the cost of installation. Once installed, the city will purchase the energy generated from the firm at a rate equal to or lower than what they already pay. As city staff like to put it: “there are no negative financial impacts arising out of this report.â€
The whole idea came out of the city's Climate Change Action Plan, which says that Toronto's goal is to be on par with cities around the world that are generating renewable energy by 2020. By 2050, the aim is to be a world leader. Just to give you an idea of what we're up against, California's target is to have 25 percent of its energy coming from renewable sources by 2017; Germany's target is 27 percent by 2020. I'll have to look into just how much of our energy is renewable already, but since solar power is so new that the city hasn't officially decided how to regulate it yet, and since we only have one windmill, I'm guessing that despite our Enwave deep lake cooling system, we're still pretty far behind.
There are approximately 1,500 city buildings and landfill sites that could be decked out with renewable energy systems of some kind (including, wind, geothermal and biogas) says the background information (PDF) included with the recommendation that was before the committee last week. Already, Parks and Recreation have installed solar heating systems on three city pools — now the three largest solar pool projects in Canada. These projects were made possible through grants from the Province's Energy Retrofit Program, the Toronto Atmospheric Fund and NRCan. The great thing about the recommendation approved last week is that the city won't have to worry about chasing after grants to make it happen.
photo of solar farm in Germany by Daniel Karmann, Toronto Star
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