An Edmonton manufacturer has flipped the switch on a new rooftop solar field, the largest of its kind from any private company in the city. All Weather at Home, one of the biggest private window, door and glass companies in the country, is now powering its west-end facilities with more than 2,000 solar panels, producing 1.3 gigawatt hours of energy annually.
Massive Installation Covers 35% of Energy Needs
The solar array amounts to 35 percent of the power needed for the 261,000-square-foot facility. On weekends, the surplus flows directly into Alberta's electricity grid. At an official launch event on Wednesday morning, guests heard how this installation stacks up against others. Among similar Canadian window and door manufacturers, it is No. 1. Within Edmonton, only Epcor's solar farm and the city's rooftop array at the Edmonton Expo Centre are larger.
Leadership Commitment to Sustainability
"We feel that this is a good indicator of the investment that we're willing to make here in Edmonton," co-CEO Jillene Lakevold said. Fellow co-CEO Colin Wiebe added, "It signals to our customers that we're in this for the long term." Lakevold noted the cost was in the millions of dollars and took around a year to complete. Getting the system up and running in an older building was no small feat, she said.
Engineering an Up-Sized Upgrade
It is not all silicon and glass when it comes to rooftop solar panels. Curtis Craig, president of InfernoSolar, the company that built the field, said it required more than 17,500 concrete ballast blocks to hold everything in place. The total build amounted to 755,000 pounds, a weight the structure could not handle. However, the roof, like many others, was flush with several hundred tons of rock and gravel. "They literally vacuumed the gravel off the roof, and it worked," said Lakevold.
The next challenge was a gambit of speed. The old electrical panel needed to be replaced, but the company could not shut down operations. The team had just 36 hours over a weekend to make the switch before operations resumed on Monday morning. "We were removing the heart of the building and putting it back in," Craig said.
Costly Energy Turns Some to Solar
Craig said this was the second-largest project his company has taken on, the first being the Little Potato Company's sprawling headquarters just south of the city, in Nisku. This field follows other big rooftop solar projects, such as those at the Edmonton Convention Centre, Ikea Edmonton, and the SunRise Building.
Craig pointed to the fact that All Weather at Home did this "without handouts," and of its own volition, and agreed that some private groups are becoming more interested in solar energy. The company did not receive grants, but is using federal and provincial tax credits and rebates. "It takes a little bit of time to become familiar with these things," Craig said. He added that sometimes it is challenging to pitch solar as a worthy expense when companies could use funds on more machines, more trucks, and staff.
