The Pandemic has virtually shut down our world, the price of oil is less than a McDonald’s happy meal and the problem of climate change is not going away. What could one person do to have an effect on any of these crises?

There are things you can do!

Here are two solutions.

Community Scale Solar and Green Energy

On the economic diversification front, we are in the final steps of creating a Green Energy Co-op. We always knew that large scale solar would become economically justified in Alberta, well it has: https://www.bvgreenenergy.org

We are going to release our first project of a $400,000 solar installation later in the spring of 2020 and the IRR (A fancy title meaning what is the payback) is estimated to be about 9%. Given that my personal portfolio took a crushing with the worlds stacking crisis on crisis I would love to have one investment that is stable and is at a 9% rate. 

Anyone in Alberta can cause a similar entity in their community. If you think this will work in your community just contact us and we will be pleased to help.   

Stay tuned for this opportunity to invest in later this year.

Personal Solar

Every time someone asks me about my personal solar array I get questions like, “what is the payback, they don’t work in Alberta, do they wear out, where is your battery, solar won’t work without massive government subsidies.”

We installed a large solar project on my home in Canmore in 2014.

And, at one time some of these questions/comments may have been true… but no longer. 

About a year ago Green Energy Alberta was created and through it the solar club.

These are aggregators of green energy carbon credits. The result is you can receive 22 cents per KWH for every KW you export to the grid. This is the equivalent of a FIT. (Feed in Tariff).

They allow you to opt in and back out based upon the time of the year and your production values. I drop out in October and back in on March 15^th, as the winter is where my balance tips towards consuming more energy than I produce with my solar.

The result is I have a pretty big credit in my account by October that completely covers my energy costs annually. It takes the payback of a solar installation from 12 + years to less than 6.   

Large scale solar with battery to support the “duck curve” is proving to be far more economical and produces less expensive energy than any other form of generation. In some jurisdictions in the US 25 year power contracts are selling for less than 2 cents per kw/h.

In Alberta we have large $500 million installations happening in the south. 

Alberta has one of the best solar resources in the world and the easiest process to gain access to the grid in Canada.

And, when people challenge me with the questions identified above I have only good news.