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Spring
2017
Grains
West
26
“Even if you might not be at the
perfect angle on the roof—often you’re
lower pitched than we do for a ground
mount—those losses from being at
a non-optimum angle are more than
made up for by the much lower system
cost,” he said. “So you end up with a
lower cost per hour of kilowatt energy
produced overall by using an existing
structure.”
There are a number of solar providers
available to farmers in Alberta, but the
costs can vary quite dramatically from
company to company.
“When I was getting quotes, it paid
to shop around,” Ziegler said. “Things
change pretty fast in that industry and
pricing does change.”
Lund agreed, and said it’s especially
important to get the best deal available
when you’re paying for both the
equipment and its installation. “Any time
you’re hiring a contractor and entering
into a purchase-and-install contract, we
definitely recommend getting usually at
least three prices [quoted],” she said.
Once you’ve shopped around for
the right solar provider, hashed out the
details of your solar PV system and had it
installed, the hard part is over.
“It’s quite a reliable technology and
it’s virtually maintenance-free,” Lund
said. “Once it’s installed, it’s pretty much
guaranteed to operate for the life of the
system with very few problems.”
Solar panels become less efficient
at generating power as they age, but,
thankfully, the drop-off in performance is
less dramatic than you might think.
“The modules themselves have
25-year power output warranties,”
Vonesch said. “So they slowly degrade
over time, but they’re guaranteed to
produce 80 per cent of their rated output
at year 25.
“The inverter, the only other major
component in the system, typically
has a 10- or 12-year product warranty.
That’s the weakest component in the
system.” He added that most customers
should expect to spend some money
on maintenance or replacement for
their inverter—which converts the direct
current produced by solar panels into
alternating current for the grid—after
15 to 20 years, but that SkyFire Energy
factors in this cost when assessing the
overall economics of the system.
The panels themselves are extremely
durable, and can even withstand the
vicious hailstorms that have long caused
serious headaches for farmers across the
province.
“Typically, if somebody is installing
a system, we’re mounting them south-
facing or at least at an angle of some
kind,” Vonesch said. “In that case, we’ve
never had a panel break from hail in the
15 years we’ve existed in Alberta, and
many of our systems have seen some
pretty major storms.”
A BRIGHTER FUTURE
Lund expects funding levels for the
On-Farm Solar Photovoltaics program to
remain constant for the immediate future,
so there will be plenty of opportunities
for interested farmers to apply for grants
going forward.
Meanwhile, Ziegler said he hopes that
at some point down the road, Alberta’s
micro-generation rules might change to
allow him to expand his current system.
“I definitely would love to expand it, but
currently the micro-generation laws in
Alberta don’t allow me to produce more
than I consume,” he said. “At this point in
time, there are a whole bunch of reasons
why that can’t happen, but it may be an
option in the future.”
His ultimate goal is to take his system
off-grid, which would allow him to store
electricity generated by his solar PV
system in batteries. However, he said,
“currently, that’s cost prohibitive.”
For now, as more and more farmers
start to consider the benefits of investing
in this renewable energy source to fuel
their operations, it seems the future of
on-farm solar in Alberta is bright.
“I’d say we’re now past the early-
adopters stage in that market and getting
more into the mainstreammarket, where
the average farmer is looking at it more
and more seriously,” Vonesch said. “The
price of these systems is continuously
dropping as well, which obviously helps
too. I think that market will continue to
grow.”
GROWING THE MARKET:
According to SkyFire Energy partner and COO David Vonesch,
40 to 50 per cent of his company’s customers in the past year have been farmers, and the
farmer share of the solar market is expected to grow.