Osoyoos Water Treatment
An electrical company in Oliver is launching a campaign to encourage wineries to adopt solar power in the Okanagan-Similkameen as a way to save money and become more environmentally sustainable.
Eric Pierce, head of Solar Sales for Argon Electrical and Solar Services, says the company has primarily installed systems for houses and apartment buildings, with roughly 10 per cent of their installs involving commercial customers.
But Pierce, who got his degree in Environmental Sciences in 1987, says it is actually the heavy power users like wineries who get the best bang for their buck when it comes to installing a solar array.
“Since starting here, I’ve been moving more toward commercial accounts, because it makes more sense," says Pierce. "With a winery, for example, you are typically dealing with a flat roof, making it easier to install and maintain, and most importantly, the client tends to save a lot more money because of the higher amount of electricity they generally use.”
One winery, for example, installed 492 photovoltaic solar modules, generating roughly 232,000 kWh annually, and offsetting carbon emissions by 118.5 tonnes per year.
“There are three very good reasons to go solar,” says Pierce. “The first and most important from a business perspective is that it will save you money, but as well, going solar can help wineries get certified with the SWBC (Sustainable Winegrowers of BC), they are key in protecting the environment, and a third benefit is that it’s great for marketing.
“A winery can honestly say we have helped the environment by generating this many kilowatt hours of clean energy, we’ve saved this many trees, and we’ve offset this much CO2 going into the air. Wineries can use that to attract more customers, as people are much more concerned these days with good environmental stewardship.”
The best thing about solar power in the 2020s is the high Return On Investment, or ROI, of at least 6.5 to 8 per cent annually.
“Let’s say it’s a $100,000 investment,” Pierce explains. “We use pretty modest figures of 6.5 to 7.5 per cent return on investment, so for a 100k system you are going to save 6.5 to 7.5 per cent on your electrical bill.
“At that rate a typical solar installation takes 10 to 14 years to pay off, and after that it’s all savings.”
To get those savings, wineries are hooked up to the Fortis power grid, and during the summer they sell their excess electricity for credits. During the fall and winter when power use increases and solar generation decreases, the electricity they purchase is offset by the credits they earn in the summer.
As well, Pierce says there are a number of things that can greatly increase the ROI for wineries. For example, power costs are going up, not down, so the ROI is expected to naturally increase over time. Secondly, the cost of installing solar is a 100 per cent write-off in the first year, so a winery installing a $100,000 system would expect to write off $20,000 to $25,000.
Lastly, both the BC and the federal governments are improving their carbon offset programs. In BC, carbon offsets typically sell for $8 to $15 a metric tonne.
In the latest figures provided by BC, a company selling 132 tonnes of CO2 offsets was paid $1,600 in 2019. While these programs have traditionally been geared toward larger electricity users, new federal programs are expected to make it easier and more profitable to sell carbon offsets.
But more importantly than even the economics is the fact that the world faces a significant challenge in keeping global warming levels below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
An increase over 2 degrees Celsius is estimated to cost the world trillions of dollars in damage due to disasters, heat related deaths and disease, damage to coastlines and coastal cities, and specifically to crops.
Fortunately, Pierce says winemakers and viticulturalists appear to be extremely aware of the need for action.
Already, wineries are responding to the call for a shift to renewable energy. While he’s only recently begun working with founder Dean Malmberg at Argon, Pierce says they are already working on one large winery project, and negotiating the scale and terms for a second.
“I think our greatest advantages is that we aren’t just a solar company,” says Pierce. “We’re an electrical company that also does solar. In our case, we do it all, so we offer a turnkey solution.”
argonelectrical.ca, or contact Eric Pierce: sales@argonsolar.ca
