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Using renewable energy to heat is challenging in Western Canada as neither solar thermal nor air source heat pumps (ASHP) are very efficient at -30C. In addition, they most often have to compete with natural gas, which is relatively inexpensive in British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, making the economics poor in many cases. However, there are circumstances where they can make sense. Industries which require heat in the summer, or rural areas which rely on propane, often 3-4 times the price of natural gas (NG), should consider using renewables to supplement or replace their fossil fuel usage.   Evacuated tube collector solar thermal (ETC ST) is the highest performing solar thermal technology and uses solar energy to heat a fluid within an evacuated tube. The vacuum chamber makes for better heat transfer and lower losses making this technology especially good for colder climates. The largest challenge with evacuated tube collectors is the unpredictable maintenance costs but a conservative estimate is 2% of the capital cost of the system annually. With solar thermal in Alberta, the economics are maximized when you can find applications which use heat in the summer, as this is when the majority of the heat is being generated.   Air source heat pumps use the same technology that’s in your fridge, air conditioner or geothermal heat pumps. They take the energy in the outdoor air and, using the refrigeration cycle, deposit that energy into the indoor space. The efficiency is measured as the Coefficient of Performance (COP) and is the output energy (in heat) divided by the input energy (electrical consumption). The COP varies greatly depending on the respective temperatures of the indoor and outdoor air. If the outdoor temperature is -30C and you’re trying to heat a room at 30C, the COP will be close to 1, whereas if you want to take outdoor air at 15C to heat a room at 20C, the COP can be over 5! While heat pumps are not a new technology, innovation continues to improve its efficiency. Most recently, Variable Compressor Speed Inverter (VCSI) Technology has the industry excited for the new potentials.   The application we found most recently is the beekeepers in Alberta who heat their honey rooms in the summer to keep the honey flowing. We did a brief analysis of a scenario where a room has to be heated to 37C throughout the summer and kept above freezing throughout the winter. The analysis assumed a retrofit where air source heat pump or evacuated tube collector solar thermal would offset a total of 66GJ/year fuel usage in the summer and 132GJ/year in the winter. Here’s a quick overview of the results:  

	ETC ST	ASHP (Summer)	ASHP (Summer & Winter)
Capital cost	$28,200	$14,300	$14,300
Annual cash flow vs propane	$1,029	$1,010	$2,492
Annual cash flow vs NG	– $161	– $179	– $1076

  For the evacuated tube collectors, the system chosen was 4 x 30 tube collectors with a hot water tank for overnight storage of heated water. The pump to circulate the glycol would consume about $80 in electricity annually and we estimated the maintenance costs at $564/year. The hot water could be integrated with the existing infloor heating or be used to supply other industrial processes.   The air source heat pump chosen for this case was an air-to-air 2.5 ton Daikin model (one of the higher quality heat pump manufacturers) which has a COP of about 4.3 when the indoor and outdoor temperatures are 37C and 16C, respectively. This would be the case if the HP only operated during the summer months when efficiency is maximized but, since electricity and propane are similar in dollars per unit of energy delivered, the air source heat pump could be operated year round to see additional benefit. In winter, the air source heat pump would average a coefficient of performance of about 2 but this is still half the price of propane! Annual maintenance fees for the air source heat pump were estimated at $250. A standard residential heat pump would only require $100-$200 in maintenance but made a conservative estimate because 37C is near the upper end of most heat pumps operating range.   Natural gas is too cheap for either technology to compete at this point, but we’ll be keeping an eye on NG prices and the innovations in both technologies as there will likely be a time when the competition flips. Evacuated tube collectors when offsetting propane has a long payback in this scenario but a slight change in gas prices or a different location with higher solar irradiance could change that. With a payback of around 6 years, the real winner here is air source heat pumps as a retrofit for applications where propane is being used – especially if there is a heating load in the summer!   Garnet Borch, E.I.T

At the end of 2018 Brazeau County announced an additional solar incentive for residents and farms located in the Brazeau County. The rebate amount announced is $0.90/DC Watt of installed solar system capacity up to $10,000 limit per landowner within the County.  The Brazeau County solar rebate is paid in addition to the existing Energy Efficiency Solar Program Rebate. Based on the application form it seems that both residential electrical services and farm electrical services are eligible for the County solar rebate.  Also, both grid-tie and off-grid solar PV systems are eligible. Residents of the town Drayton Valley, Alberta are not qualifying for the solar program, as administratively they have their own municipal government. For grid-connected solar systems, the County will require the system approval from Energy Efficiency Alberta Solar Program or Alberta On-Farm solar program. For off-grid systems, the County will require receipt of purchase, proof of wattage and pictures. To qualify, the systems cannot exceed 15KW DC capacity and maximum allowable rebate per system is $10,000. The solar rebates will be issued quarterly. As an example, a residential customer in Brazeau can install an 11KW solar PV system with Energy Efficiency of Alberta contributing $10,000 rebate, Brazeau County contributing another $10,000 and the homeowner contribution is only around $7,000 plus taxes.  

Incentive provision for fast depreciation of “Clean Energy” assets was introduced in 1996 by Federal Budget as a new category of deductible expenses under Schedule II to the Income Tax Regulations. After that, the updates took place several times. The incentive is based on the environmental benefits of low-emission energy generation equipment. On November 21, 2018 Canada’s federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced new Accelerated Investment Incentive program. The program will temporarily allow 100% depreciation for the tax purpose for the classes 43.1 and 43.2. Rules apply to the equipment acquired after November 20, 2018, and available for business use before 2028. The new rules will be gradually phased out for investments that become available for use in 2024. The allowance will drop to 75% in 2024 and 2025. In the subsequent two years 2026 and 2027 the allowance will drop to 55% for investments available for use in these years. This rule will no longer apply for the investment ready for business use after 2027. Accelerated Investment Incentive rules include the following:

• Pro-rated basis for short taxation years rules apply.
• The half-year rule suspended.
• The requirement to qualify for neither the taxpayer nor a non-arm’s-length person previously owned the property; and
• The property cannot be transferred to the taxpayer on “rollover” basis, which means the tax benefit is not transferable.

Equipment included in Class 43.1 or 43.2 are

• Renewable energy source as wind power, solar power, small hydro, geothermal, wave or tidal energy:
• A solar cell or PV module or solar collector that is integrated into a building, with exception of a window.

 

SaskPower started this fall implementing changes to facilitate power generation that helps to meet its goals of reducing emissions and increasing renewable energy generation. The first step is the Power Generation Partner Program (“PGPP”). For the next two years, the program will support 10MW per year of renewable energy projects, including solar power, biomass, biogas, hydro and geothermal. Each project can be sized between 100KW and 1MW and priority will be given to the projects located in the areas where SaskPower requires additional energy generation. SaskPower Power Generation Partner Program offers a fixed generation off-take price $108.22/MWh escalated 0.6% annually for a term of 20 years. At the right solar site, an experienced EPC solar contractor can execute projects under this program that generate attractive financial returns. Feel free to contact us for details and for opportunities to partner on the applications. The second step is expected in modifying the current Net-metering program that is expiring in November 2018. During the last one month of November, SaskPower can still apply to qualify to the existing Net-Metering program terms and conditions that offer 20% rebate up to $20,000 per project. Relatively high electricity rates combined with decreasing solar PV costs create a great environment for investing in smaller-scale solar projects that sized to offset consumption of residential or commercial customers. In the declining solar PV prices, there has not been a better time to capitalize on the existing Net-Metering program terms and conditions. There is some uncertainty remains about the new Net-Metering program announcement timing and the new terms. While we expect the 20% rebate is likely to be terminated, we hope that the new program will address the long-term certainty and the term, which the existing program lacks.

This year the Solar Power International Innovations (SPI) was held in Anaheim, California.  I Mikhail Ivanchikov attend on behalf of Dandelion Renewables. It was nice to experience the lovely weather for a week, leaving Edmonton covered in snow for a sunny and warm California.  The show and information there was so valuable and intense that I had limited time to spend outside of the show floor. Below, I would like to share some of the most significant innovations this show brought up.   Solar Panels:  

• Bifacial solar panels are taking a larger share of the market. With our Northern location, bi-facial modules have higher albedo from snow and started delivering higher ROE on many fixed tilt or single-axis tracker ground-mounted projects.  Even manufacturers that were conservative about bifacial panels, like Q Cells, are expecting now to add bifacial module options to their product line in 2019.

 

• Split-cell panels allow increasing the module efficiency, suit well for sites with shading effects and seem to be well accepted in the industry. Trying and testing these panels is on our to-do list for Dandelion Renewables and we already have some split-cell modules ordered.

  Racking:   The demise of Schletter Inc created opportunities for us to revisit the huge solar racking market offering. Last season we were bringing and trying a number of racking innovations to identify our own preferences.    

• For the pitched roof, the SPI demonstrated great options for wire management and a couple promising rail-less racking systems.

 

• For ballasted racking, I was happy to see that not all the manufacturers switched to galvanized steel materials, in order to keep the costs down. Many still offer full aluminum racking components, which we believe will last much longer on the roof than even the best-galvanized product. The entire industries preference is now landscape module orientation and it was almost impossible to find a good ballasted racking product for portrait modules orientation.

 

• For fixed-tilt ground-mounted racking, the choices are overwhelming. Innovations include: racking design for a smaller amount of driven piles; pre-assembled array of modules, racking that allows using shorter driven piles.

 

• For single axis trackers, innovations include drive mechanisms and structural designs that allow the 2V layout of the modules to be rated for high wind and high snow locations, compressed air operated trackers, quite aggressive allowances on the North to South slopes.  For our Northern climate, the questions of the power back-up and for the cold rating of the drive were the key.

  Inverters:  

• Dynapower came up with the DC-DC converters that enable to harvest solar energy from utility-scale projects, that otherwise would have been lost in inverter clipping.  One downside is that this product is available for central inverters, whereas in our designs we prefer to work with string inverters.

 

• Seamless integration of inverters with battery banks and energy storage, in general, took a large share of the SPI show floor. We found good battery-based inverters for both single and three-phase applications that have much better round-trip efficiencies compared to our first hybrid inverters installations.

  I was able to take away many things from the show last week, and am happy to say that Dandelion Renewables will continue to provide you with the best and most up to date resources for you and your solar systems.   ~ Mikhail Ivanchikov, president.

I love micro hydro. When done the right way, it can be environmentally friendly, have minimal ecological impact, simple, efficient and robust. My first job in renewable energy was with Smart Hydro Power, a German company selling 1m diameter floating river turbines which generate up to 5kW of electricity. It’s an exciting industry with a really nice work environment (who doesn’t like hanging out by lakes and streams?).   I recall when I was trying to enter the renewable energy industry after high school, I received a well thought out response from one of the senior managers of a local firm. One of the lines in my application voiced my opinion that solar is the way of the future, to which he responded saying solar indeed has great potential but it’s important that we use a variety of renewable energy sources as we transition to a more sustainable future. What’s important is to utilize the resources around you and not create blanket solutions – it’s standard intelligent design really. So where does micro hydro make sense? British Columbia has 1,955,540 km of rivers and streams and the majority of the province is mountainous. Alberta may have more sun, Saskatchewan may have more wind, but BC has incredible micro-hydro potential. Of course, this isn’t new news given that 90% of BC’s electricity is from hydro dams, but there’s more to hydro electricity than megawatt scale dams.   The smallest hydro turbines are often hydro-kinetic – think underwater wind turbine. As the name implies, these turbines use only the kinetic energy of the flowing water and no vertical head is required. They are the least disruptive of the local environment but require faster flow speeds because they only use the kinetic energy of the water and not the potential energy.   The next scale up is the run-of-river projects which can vary in size from a few kilowatts to several megawatts. In these systems, a portion of the river is diverted through a turbine that is essentially a pump running in reverse and makes use of both kinetic and potential energy   Another unique application of hydro turbines is in existing piping systems. This could be sewer lines, industrial processes or supply lines where the source is higher than the destination. The same technology used in run-of-river projects can be used to produce electricity from otherwise wasted sources.   Electrically, micro hydro is a really nice fit for off-grid situations because of the consistency of the power. With a constant supply of electricity, the size of the battery bank (which often accounts for 30-50% of an off-grid solar install) can be greatly reduced. Grid-connected systems are perhaps less dreamy (everyone likes the off-grid cabin in the woods next to the stream, right?) but can be a great fit under the right conditions.   The last element to note when considering micro-hydro is the permitting process. The number of permits and environmental assessments necessary will vary greatly site to site depending on size, ownership, type of installation, location and local ecosystem. Like the rivers and streams themselves, micro-hydro projects do not come and go overnight. They take time to develop and, when done right, last a long time.   Garnet Borch, E.I.T

How Solar PV Works with BC Hydro-Net Metering

The BC Hydro-Net Metering program allows for homeowners and business owners to generate electricity to offset their electricity needs, using renewable energy sources such as solar power, wind power and water power (micro-hydro). “Net metering” generally means that at each billing period (e.g. every two months with BC Hydro) the net consumption is used to create the bill. For example, in one billing period, if a customer generating solar power were to export into the grid the same amount of power as they used in that period (“net zero consumption”), the consumption-related charges for that bill period would be as though the customer didn’t use any power from the grid. BC Hydro net-metering is a better deal than most other utilities/provinces have in Canada for solar photovoltaic (PV) power generating customers because of BC Hydro billing approach attributes the same value to the energy used from the grid by customers and the energy used by the grid generated by customers. In other areas with similar programs that allow grid-connected power generation, such as in Alberta “micro-generation” program, the utilities attribute a higher value to the energy used from the grid by customers than the value of the energy used by the grid generated by customers. Residential customers have a “conservation rate 1101” with BC Hydro that has a tiered power price to encourage customers to use less energy. If a customer uses more than 1350kWh in a 2-month billing period (~675kWh/month), the portion of power consumption above 1350kWh is billed at a higher price than the first 1350kWh. If a customer uses enough power to reach the higher priced tier, then solar PV power generated would reduce the energy costs at the higher tier price first, before reducing energy costs at the lower price tier. Any excess (net-positive) solar power exported to the grid in the billing period would be applied to future bills as kWh (not as $), which could reduce energy in both of the higher and lower price tiers in those later months. If a net-metering customer has a remaining excess generation credit at the end of the year (customer’s net-metering anniversary year) then BC Hydro pays the customer for the excess credit, at a rate of $9.99 cents/kWh. For more energy rate details, see the summary table “2018 BC Hydro Electrical Energy Rates”.

BC Hydro-Net Metering Program Eligibility

The criteria for participating in the net-metering program with BC Hydro are: ● Power generation comes from a clean or renewable resource such as solar photovoltaic (PV), wind power, or hydropower. ● Maximum power generation system size is 100kW, for example, 100kW solar photovoltaic system. ● The power generation system is sized to produce no more than the customer’s annual power consumption. ● The solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation system must be under 100kW (PV watts). ● The power generation system must be connected to the BC Hydro power distribution grid. (Note: About 95% of power-grid customers in British Columbia are BC Hydro customers. Outside the BC Hydro serviced areas are parts of the Okanagan (including Kelowna) and the City of New Westminster.

Solar PV Economics with BC Hydro-Net Metering

Economics vary based on details like geographic location, array tilt, shading, electrical service size, service voltage, and site electrical loads profile, but here are some sample economics for adding solar PV for different billing rate structures with BC Hydro customers: – Residential customers who typically consume most of their grid power in the first tier energy price (e.g. customers who typically use less than 1350kWh each 2-month billing period) could achieve marginal positive rates of return on investments, due to relatively low energy rates in the first tier price, and the small scale of the system. – Residential customers who typically consume most of their grid power in the second tier energy price (e.g. customers who typically use more than 3500kWh each 2-month billing period) would have an attractive rate of return on investment as their solar power generation would offset grid-power consumption at the higher price tier. – Small-size business customers could achieve a very attractive rate of return on investment by offsetting a relatively high power price and benefiting from a more economical installation cost through economy of scale. There are some additional unique opportunities available for small business customers that we’d be happy to share with you. (Small General Service, <35kW demand). – Medium-size business customers could achieve an attractive rate of return on investment with a balance of moderate energy price, and installation costs improving from economies of scale. (Medium General Service, 35kW-150kW demand). – Large-size business customers who are able to run their heaviest loads only when the sun is shining to allow PV to shave the peak demand charge could achieve a marginal positive rate of return on investment. Returns are lower due to the low energy price per kWh for this size of customer. (Large General Service, >150kW demand) – Steve Gladwin