Summerside’s Credit Union Place (CUP) is now partially powered by the sun.
The municipal civic centre has been successful integrated with its new solar panels and lithium ion storage battery for about two weeks now.
The city said the system has produced about 13 megawatt hours of electricity since it was turned on, which is the equivalent of offsetting about 2.5 tonnes of greenhouse gasses.
The city officially cut the ribbon, or rather flipped the switch, on the project Friday.
“Today is another major step forward in our growing energy sector,” said Mayor Bill Martin.
“This project has furthered our commitment to a greener community and has taken us a step closer to energy independence.”
First announced in March, the Smart Storage Renewable Energy System as the project was dubbed, is a partnership between the municipality and Samsung Renewable Energy Canada Inc., with funding split between the federal government and the city. The project had a price tag of $3 million.
In total, 1,404 solar panels have been installed on mounts outside CUP, with an additional 144 panels on special stands to allow cars to park underneath them. Those panels collect energy when the sun shines and use a lithium ion battery to store it. The battery feeds the power into CUP’s system during peak hours when electricity is at its most expensive.
By shaving off some of the higher peaks in the building’s fluctuating energy usage, the system is expected to cut about $100,000 off CUP’s $380,000 electricity bill annually.
Eskay Lee, president of Samsung Renewable Energy Canada Inc., said he has been “deeply impressed” with Summerside since the two parties started working together.
“It is our honour and pleasure to take part of this amazing journey with the City of Summerside for smart energy projects here in Prince Edward Island,” said Lee.
“Today’s announcement will be only the first step in achieving this great vision. We at Samsung will keep supporting and contributing onto the next phases.”
As Lee noted, the CUP solar collection and battery project is just Phase 1 of an intended three-phase plan to expand renewable energy in the city.
Phase 2 would involve the construction of utility scale solar power farm capable of producing 16 megawatts of power. Phase 3 would be the establishment of a renewable energy centre of excellence in the city.
However, Martin also said that there was no firm timeline yet for when Phase 2 or 3 might move forward.
In the interim though, both the city and its partners will be monitoring the CUP system’s performance.
@JournalPMacLean
