Our friends at Viridian ( the suppliers of our solar panels) took us up on our offer for the house to be a subject of a post on their site. In fact Steve Unger was the first of our specialist partners to do so. He deployed Viridian marketing director, Sarah Allan to work on the assignment. Sarah is a local woman of many talents - Vic High and U Vic grad. She spent three years in Belgium at NATO working in defense before returning home to Canada when Covid hit. She took some outstanding drone photos of the house one sunny day then returned a week or so later. We talked for more than an hour. Sarah distilled the conversation to 7 minutes. It demonstrates how crucial the solar panel planning was to the success of the whole net zero endeavor. Here is the Viridian Blog Post Video.
This from the Canadian Encyclopedia “The energy contained in sunlight is the source of life on Earth. The Canada EnergyRegulator (formerly the National Energy Board) expects solar power to make up 3 per cent of Canada's total electricity generation capacity by 2040. ... The energy contained in sunlight is the source of life on Earth.”
At present Canada ranks 9th in solar energy production from photovoltaics accounting for only 1% of OECD nation production lagging Japan whose output is 10%, the US at 12% and China at 33%. Most of the panels are located in Ontario. There is a gap in the clouds over south Vancouver Island. We can help boost the stats for BC and reduce Canadian reliance on fossil fuels. The panels on our house are capable of generating 110% of the power we need. For more on Canadian performance among leading nations for renewable sources check out this Natural Resources Canada link