DERRICK PENNER First Nation bets on green energy for big savings and a better world
The Tsleil-Waututh First Nation is making a $600,000 investment in a solar electricity installation to power the community’s recently completed administration office and health centre, nestled in the slopes above the Dollarton Highway on Indian Arm.
“We really wanted to think about what kind of building do we want to have and we knew ultimately we’d like to have solar energy (to power the facility),” Chief Leah George-Wilson said of the decision. “It all keeps in line with Tsleil-Waututh Nation’s values around our own stewardship of our territory as well as economic stability and sustainability.”
The project, which kicked off this week, is part of the First Nation’s overall strategy to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions, George-Wilson said, and while it won’t directly displace fossil fuel consumption, she argued it does fit in with her community’s opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
“We’re not just saying, ‘Look Canada, or look B.C., or look whomever, we can (consider) green energy as an alternative to fossil fuel energy’; we’re also doing something about it,” she said.
The chief added that it was important to the Tsleil-Waututh to make the point that, if a First Nation with 600 members, 300 of whom live on reserve on the North Shore, can do this, “imagine what a whole lot of people can do?”
And the project adds the Tsleil-Waututh to a growing list of First Nations looking to renewable electricity as an option to improve their own sustainability as well as for economic development.
“With or without Trans Mountain, we’d be doing something like this,” George-Wilson said. “It’s really important for us to ensure that we’re using resources in a good way.”
By plugging into B.C. Hydro’s net-metering program, which allows customers to install solar panels to offset energy costs, the Tsleil-Waututh estimate they’ll save $29,800 per year in electricity bills, paying off the investment within 12 years and generating almost $894,000 in savings over 30 years.
As of this year, some 3,000 customers have signed on to net metering, with 98 per cent of those being small scale solar installations that generate 24 gWh (gigawatt hours) worth of electricity per year, according to the utility.
The average home uses about 11,000 kWh (kilowatt hours) per year, according to B.C. Hydro.
The Tsleil-Waututh are already experienced with net metering, having added a smaller, 40-kilowatt (kW) solar installation on a daycare centre that opened in the community in 2014, said Dennis Thomas-Whonoak, senior business-development manager for the Tsleil-Waututh.
That installation powers 90 per cent of the daycare facility’s energy needs, which helped make the case for including a larger, 350-panel, 134 kW solar installation for the larger administration building that was under development at the time.
Thomas-Whonoak said the designed capacity is larger than the 100 kW maximum set under B.C. Hydro’s program, but that is to accommodate the fact that “we’re not like California, we don’t get a crazy amount of sun.”
By building the capacity larger, it’s more likely it will generate the maximum amount of power under net metering, which allows customers to flow excess power back into the grid, for which they can earn credits from B.C. Hydro.
The Tsleil-Waututh’s contractor estimates that the energy produced by the project will offset about 120 tonnes of carbon dioxide, Thomas-Whonoak said, or be enough to power one million kilometres worth of driving in electric cars.
One-third of the project’s financing came from three outside agencies, Thomas-Whonoak said — the Fraser Basin Council, the B.C. Indigenous Clean Energy Initiative of the New Relationship Trust, and a program called Solar Now by the North Growth Foundation. The Tsleil-Waututh are paying for the rest.
And Thomas-Whonoak is optimistic that the nation will be able to use solar power to reduce the carbon impact of other projects it wants to pursue, such as new housing.
“It aligns very well with some of our climate action initiatives,” he said. “In our ... post-industrial era, we want to try to come up with new, innovative ways to harness the natural elements of life, so that we can be leaders for our younger generations.”