The District of Summerland officially opened its renewable energy centre, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/District of Summerland
November 14, 2023 - 4:09 PM
After eight years of planning and hard work, the Summerland Energy Centre officially opened today, boasting the title of the Okanagan’s first utility-scale solar and battery storage facility.
Summerland’s electrical utility has long suffered from underinvestment. In 2015, district council proposed the idea of generating a small quantity of power from renewable sources to help control costs and provide stabilization for the grid.
The project cost $6.98 million to complete, with funding coming from the Canada Community-Building Fund and the District's capital reserve, according to a District of Summerland media release.
The facility is built on the former municipal works site at Cartwright Mountain and plans for an adjacent eco-village are currently underway which is set to have a range of housing types.
The energy centre and eco-village are also part of a larger project that includes the installation of rooftop solar panels on municipal hall and the George Ryga Arts and Cultural Centre, the district said. There are also plans for a new distributed generation program, where residents can connect their home renewable energy source to the Summerland grid.
“The Summerland Energy Centre directly benefits everyone in the community, since every resident, business and farm pays for electricity,” Summerland Mayor Doug Holmes said in the release.
“Besides demonstrating leadership in local sustainability and achieving a level of control over our future energy needs, the opportunity for peak shaving means we can start seeing a return on our investment almost immediately, not ten years down the road.”
The energy centre is different from ordinary renewal projects as its battery storage component gives it a solar array with 412kW solar power capacity, 1MW of battery storage, 3.56 MWh power supply, and upgrades to the existing electrical system, the district said.
The facility feeds power directly to the grid and can release stored power “to provide resiliency for critical infrastructure and allow for 'daily peak shavings’ on the purchase price of wholesale power.”
“This is a historic project, being the first of its kind in the province,” project manager with Wildstone Construction Group Marcel Olsthoorn said in the release.
The public are invited to a tour of the facility for one hour from 9 to 10 a.m. on Nov. 18.
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