The owners of six properties successful in a lottery for an incentive program to plug into solar power in Banff have until the end of the year to get their rooftop solar photovoltaic panel systems off the ground.
Of the 15 successful properties, nine have been developed or nearing completion, but three commercial and three residential properties have yet to apply for a development permit – and the Dec. 31 deadline is looming.
Town of Banff officials say one option, if the projects aren’t complete, could be to consider an extension of 30 to 60 days at most, but it is probably fairer to throw the applications back into a pool.
“They only have about six weeks to pull it off, and we’re hopeful that they can, but we don’t know for sure,” said Chad Townsend, the Town of Banff’s environmental manager, at a council meeting Monday (Oct. 26).
“We have a number of people on the waiting list in each category that would have liked to proceed, and so in fairness to everyone, we may just want to pool everything back and offer the opportunity again for 2016.”
In February, Banff council approved a production incentive program for solar photovoltaic panel systems, the first of its kind for a municipality in Canada.
The program requires qualifying homeowners to pay for installation of the solar system, and then they receive a top-up payment over seven years to help make the solar investment more affordable.
Residents have installed their own solar panels, and if more power than needed is produced, it goes into the public power grid and the Town of Banff buys it.
The Town is using $300,000 from its environmental reserve to fund the program.
There were 47 applications for the incentive program, which could support 100kW of capacity, and because of the popularity of the program, the municipality hired auditing firm KPMG to conduct a random lottery.
“At the start, it was very much an unknown whether it would be of interest to people and whether people would support it and go through with it,” said Townsend. “But it was so successful we had to have a lottery.”
Applicants must go through a development permit process to meet design guidelines to make sure their systems meet certain aesthetic requirements. There is, however, no cost for the permit.
Townsend said the plan is to also do research on what a shared solar concept could look like, which is being done in other jurisdictions.
“Whether it be on a Town facility or a private big roof, a whole bunch of panels get installed, and it’s almost like crowd source funding for solar,” he said.
“We’re wondering if it could work into the incentive program and how it would translate legally. We’re exploring the potential to do this in 2016 along with offering out to a number of private roof holders.”
Councillor Stavros Karlos liked the idea.
“That’s so cool,” he said.
