|
A Solar-Energy or Wind-Energy Collector on your Roof? |
(appeared in Bayview Post, April, 2004)
How GREEN are you? Are you willing to make a contribution to improve our environment? By installing a solar energy collector or wind energy collector on your house or property, you could offload some measure of the burden you currently place on our energy grid.
A few citizens in Toronto are doing it right now. You could too - and I'd like to get the City of Toronto, the provincial and federal governments to help you. The issue is the cost/benefit case. A 3200 watt system might cost $30,000 - $40,000 installed, at today's prices. It could return benefits in the order of about $600 per year at today's electricity costs. By itself, that would mean a 50 to70 year payback - which is far beyond what most people would normally consider.
But your energy collector would also return benefits to the provincial and federal governments. The provincial government is struggling with electricity supply and demand now. And by 2007, if it is able to keep its promise to shut down its current coal-fired electricity generation plants, it will need new energy sources. I believe there is a case for the provincial government to satisfy some of that capacity on the rooftops of homes. So instead of building an 800-megawatt nuclear
reactor - at a cost of at least $800 million, it could put that money into the equivalent in rooftop energy generation.
The federal government has a well-known green agenda. It has committed to the goals of the Kyoto protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gases. This noble objective will forestall, or hopefully prevent, dramatic climate change - in Canada and throughout the world. The federal government has allocated up to $2 billion to a Kyoto fund to reduce greenhouse gas production in Canada. I believe there is a case for the federal government to achieve part of those goals through reduction
of fossil-fuel energy generation for home usage - substituting residential renewable energy instead.
If we could get the federal and provincial governments to subsidize your renewable energy device up to 3/4 of its cost, your payback period could drop to 12 or 15 years, at today's energy prices. Are you GREEN enough to sign up for a program like that? Let me know at councillor_Jenkins@toronto.ca.
|
