Any home can have solar power
By Richard Ehrlich Caledon Clean Air Clean Energy Program

When people think of a home with solar power, they usually imagine a cozy offgrid house with solarcharged batteries and minimal electricity usage.

My brother's family lives that way in a cottage-style houseboat in Yellowknife. Rooftop solar panels charge batteries to provide power for efficient compact fluorescent lights, a small entertainment centre and a computer. They manage without running water, laundry facilities, toaster or microwave. They use a woodstove for heating and hot water, and propane for cooking and refrigeration. When they need more electricity for power tools or vacuuming, they turn on a small generator.

While I admire my brother's low ecological footprint, his lifestyle is not for everyone.

When we were researching a clean power system for our rural Caledon home, we wanted one that would work with an existing ordinary house. We live in a valley, so a wind turbine wasn't an option, and our house layout made solar water heating impractical. We opted for a "grid-tie" solar system, an option that Hydro One has recently begun to support here. Power from solar panels is fed into an inverter, which hangs on our basement wall like an electrical panel. It converts solar energy into electricity that is fed directly into the local power grid, and we get credit for it on our bill.

We didn't need to purchase batteries, which are expensive and require periodic replacement. The main disadvantage of a gridtie system is that it shuts down during power failures to avoid any risk to technicians working on the grid, so we are without power like everyone else.

We installed 1,200W of photovoltaic solar panels on our garden shed roof, and over the first year, we produced 25% of our annual household electricity consumption. We have typical appliances including dishwasher, satellite TV, vacuum, oven and laundry, but we do work hard at energy conservation. Our electricity consumption is lower than some homes

because our furnace, water heater and stovetop use propane. Our appliances are reasonably efficient, and we seldom run the air conditioner or clothes dryer.

Steve Eng, of EnviroEnergy Technologies, managed the equipment installation, grid connection, permits and other paperwork for our project. We aren't keen do-it-yourselfers, and we truly appreciated his professional guidance.

Our system cost about the same as a kitchen renovation and should produce clean power for 25 years with no maintenance. Later this year, Hydro One will start paying us 42 cents per kilowatthour that we generate through their new Standard Offer Contract (SOC). Germany was the first country with SOCs, and there are now so many solar panels on German houses that manufacturers can't make them fast enough.

This new price will give us a 20-year payback on our investment. As solar panels decrease in price, we will add more panels to triple our generating capacity, resulting in a quicker payback. But it's not about

the money! More importantly, we have reduced our annual greenhouse gas emissions by over 1.5 tonnes and reduced our contribution to this area's serious smog problem. Our system produces the most power on sunny days, which means we need less electricity when Ontario's smog levels and power demand are highest.

As home solar systems become more common, we will take a big step toward shutting down Ontario's coal burning power generators, the province's biggest sources of smog.

For more information on residential renewable power systems, contact Steve Eng of Enviro-Energy Technologies at s e n g @ e n v i r o energytech.com.

For more information about this or other topics in the Caledon Clean Air Clean Energy Program, please contact us at cca@caledoncountryside.org or 905-584-6221. Previous articles in this series are available at: www.caledoncountryside.or g/stepup.htm.