Solar panels soaking up the sun. What you can’t see is how they spit back dollars into the wallets of their owners.

On a clear day, you can see the solar panels soaking up the sun.

What you can’t see is how they spit back dollars into the wallets of their owners.

Although there’s a diverse mixture of new energy programs available, local farms and churches are turning towards the sun for solutions to the high cost of energy.

Grace United Church recently approved a plan in principle to cover their south-facing roof with panels.

“We really want people to notice them in the neighbourhood and see we are an environmentally friendly neighbour,” said Bette McCracken, chairwoman of the east-end church.

With black panels around the perimeter, McCracken said a dark blue cross will grace the centre of the solar-panel array with a nod to the building’s purpose.

Robbie Goulden of Solera Energies said their company has blanketed a number of churches with solar panels from London to the Greater Toronto Area to Aurora.

By sending power back to the hydro grid, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) pays the solar panel homeowner, business, farm or church, as much as 55 cents per kilowatt.

As Ontarians, we buy hydro between four and 10 cents per kilowatt, depending on the time of day, so the increased revenue goes into the pockets of the energy efficient.

“What a statement when it comes to the stewardship of the planet,” Goulden said.

And, it also helps with adding money to the pockets of the parishioners over the long haul, he said. With an initial investment of $20,000 to $50,000, organizations can expect to see a three-fold return on their investment during a 20-year program.

Ontario’s feed-in-tariff (FIT) and microFIT programs were created by the OPA in the Green Energy and Green Economy Act of 2009.

The two programs, FIT and microFIT — for under 10-kilowatt projects — were created to help the province phase out coal-generated electricity by 2014. The OPA is hoping to boost renewable energy sources across the province with sustainable programs such as paying personal solar-panel projects to feed the grid.

“As a utility, we’re obligated to connect anybody with a FIT or microFIT system,” said Eric Fagen, director of communications at PowerStream.

He noted there are already many applications in the queue being evaluated to determine if they meet the criteria for solar-panel installation.

Fagen said there 243 microFIT and 40 FIT programs running in nine municipalities and 11 communities across central Ontario.

In the Barrie area alone there are 49 microFIT and 11 FIT operations hooked up to the grid now.

Fagen said there’s recently been a review of the pricing structure that was approved for the microFIT program, and another underway, but not yet finalized for the FIT or larger commercial program.

He notes that while the pennies per kilowatt paid to the microFIT customers will be less than the original customers who signed on three years ago, the price of solar panels and installations have also decreased.

PowerStream Solar is a commercial component whereby they lease a roof from a commercial building and PowerStream retains ownership and operates solar panels on businesses to feed the grid.

In Oro-Medonte Township, Bruce Chappell of Chappell Farms said he installed panels on his land in May.

He said the unit that moves at the discretion of the sun’s direction, cost $40,000 to install and his agreement pays ten cents for each kilowatt, all the while selling electricity back to the grid for 64 cents per kilowatt.

Chappell remembers buying into the idea when Premier Dalton McGuinty started the program in 2009.

“The Liberal government wanted to get rid of the coal-fired plant at Darlington,” said Chappell. “I think at that time, Ontario was producing .08 % of their energy through green energy. It was less than 1%.

“It’s going to be environmentally better in the long run,” said Chappell.

The program doesn’t only cover solar panels, but wind, water and bio-energy programs as well.

Barrie was in the process of considering building a windmill or wind turbine on the landfill land a few years ago.

However, the feasibility study has been caught in red tape ever since, said Peter Bursztyn, of the Wind Catchers organization in Barrie.

“The study has been delayed and delayed. It was absolutely supposed to come to council March 2012, but it didn’t,” he said.

While he waits for that information to filter through the levels of staff at city hall, he’s been studying both kitchen composting — on a grand scale — as well as methane energy.

He said the municipality should be subsidizing the cost of garburators to munch up kitchen compost into an energy-efficient formula.

“It’s not rocket science,” said Bursztyn.

Compost without air becomes methane and that can be used to create energy.”

Alternatively, a group of studies out of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and the University of Rhode Island are looking at ways to gather up the heat trapped in asphalt as an energy source.

If they placed pipes under the surface of the roads and collected the solar energy created, they hope it could lead to a means of heating those same roads in the winter to reduce the use of salt and sand.

Chappell Farms, located outside of Barrie, is one of many farms turning to solar power. J.T. MC VEIGH / THE BARRIE EXAMINER


(Credit Cheryl Browne - Barrie Examiner)